


Scout My Heart

by LensMind



Series: Acting Up [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Agent!Levi, Alternate Universe - Actors, Eren's a persistent brat, M/M, May contain spoilers, Rating May Change, Romance, actor!Eren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1591307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LensMind/pseuds/LensMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took five months, three bloody noses, fifteen audition tapes and over one hundred copies of his resume before Eren is finally taking on by the most acclaimed agent in the acting industry. It takes a lot more time and effort to land his first major movie role - he can probably thank his agent for that.</p><p>And somehow it takes a lot less to find himself caught up in a rather strange relationship with that very agent. He can definitely thank his agent for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Five Months

**Author's Note:**

> **Note: This work belongs to me, please do not copy/dublicate.**
> 
> Welp! People were asking about one, and then this happened. 
> 
> This is set in the same verse as my JeanMarco fic: Playing Off Him, but focusing on Eren and Levi's relationship. Apart from the first chapter of each, they are happening at the same time. 
> 
> You guys can find me on [my tumblr!](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com) Hope you enjoy :)

The first time I met him was in the lobby of the Recon Corps Talent Agency offices. I was in the middle of ~~begging~~ politely asking the receptionist to let me speak to any agent available. Really, I was pretty damn lucky that Levi was walking into the building at the point – along with the CEO of the whole agency: Erwin Smith. The receptionist was adamant that I wasn’t allowed to just go up to talk to them without an appointment, but, well, rules are meant to be broken and all that. 

“M-Mr Levi, sir!” I cried out after them as they made their way towards the elevators.

“Sir, you can’t just–!” The receptionist lunged forward desperately, grabbing my bag strap just as I was starting to run forward, which resulted in her nearly toppling over the desk and me nearly being strangled to death . 

The two of us were in the middle of recovering (still shouting at one another) when I heard a foot tapping impatiently on the hard floor just behind me. Spinning, I shut my mouth as I looked down at the cold glare aimed in my direction. 

_From the infamous Levi himself._

I swear the excitement building up in my chest was so intense it should have been illegal. 

“Sir! I’m honoured to meet you!” He raised an eyebrow. I didn’t let it faze me, and began searching through my bag for my resume. “Actually, I’m an actor and I was wondering if you’d consider taking me on here–”

“Is this brat causing problems for you, Nifa?”

I flinched at the sharp tone. Levi wasn’t even looking at me anymore – it was almost like he was staring straight through me as if I didn’t exist. The receptionist behind gave a small sigh, but didn’t say anything. 

Apparently though, that was enough of a reply to Levi. 

He grabbed me by my bag and started dragging me towards the doors. I tried to wriggle away, but damn he was strong for a short guy… Before I knew it, I was being hurled out onto the street. 

“Shit!” I gasped as I lost my footing and fell right on my face. 

Levi turned and walked straight back in the building without a care in the world. “Get lost, kid.”

So, our first meeting consisted of me being thrown out of the building and going home with nothing but a scraped chin and a renewed determination.

It was well known in all performer circles – both amateur and professional – that the Recon Corps’ Levi was the toughest and pickiest agents there was. He was only in charge of a very select number of people, and it took years for some of them to be noticed by him. He was a tough nut to crack, with an unpleasant personality; but everyone agreed that once you were in his charge, you’d end up with some of the most amazing work under your belt. That guy could train anyone up and get them any job he wanted to. Recon Corps Agency was one of the best, and Levi was their best: and I’d get him to take me on if it killed me. 

It nearly did fucking kill me. 

I went back to the Agency every day – sometimes even twice – and after the first few days I realised the receptionist Nifa had taken to calling Levi down to the foyer as soon as I walked in. The guy never once tried to listen to me, and just kicked me out without a word. Three weeks passed, and one afternoon he was in the middle of hauling my ass out by the back of my shirt collar. The force in which he threw me out had me falling to the ground just like every other time, but this time, he paused before heading inside. 

His eyes swept over me, taking me in _properly_ for the first time, and let out a small tut. “Persistent brat. Do you have a death wish?”

I took it as my chance. Ignoring the throbbing in my shoulder from where I’d landed, I held out my resume. “If that’s what it takes for you to notice me, then yeah.”

He took the paper from me… and then promptly crumpled it into a ball and threw it at my head. It bounced off me forehead, and I felt my face fall into a small pout. 

“I don’t take on requests,” he said as he walked away. “I _scout_ talent.”

“Fine,” I spat, despite the fact he was long gone. “You’ll just have to scout me.”

What followed were the most tiresome and pain-filled four months of my life. Every morning I was at the Agency building, a new idea planted in my mind. Nifa never even looked up from her desk when I arrived anymore, she just pressed a button and Levi was on his way down to throw me out. The short-bastard had a counter-attack to every plan I had.

I bombarded him with letters. He dropped the shredding pieces of paper out the window and over my head. 

I left my audition tapes on his car. He taped the broken discs to the door for me to see. 

I even started sneaking up to his office floor after a while (I think at that point Nifa had given up), and sat waiting outside his door. He ignored me the whole day straight and went home without a glance in my direction. 

I went home with bruises, cuts, sprains, even the odd bloody nose from being thrown out. Mikasa got angrier and angrier every time I returned home in a state. It was alright for her; with her skills, she’d gotten work as a stunt double almost straight out of high school. Me? I was still working the graveyard shift at Burger King, trying to at least buy my own food. My parents had gone on and on about getting a proper job, stop chasing stupid dreams and all that, but I was going to get there. I _had_ to get there, and Levi was my ticket. 

It was when Armin came round that I really snapped. 

“Guys! I got onto the Recon Corps’ books!” 

Those words pissed me off. Don’t get me wrong, I love Armin – he’s my best friend, and has been for years. What pissed me off was how he’d gotten into the Agency after only one month of meetings, and I was still being thrown out onto the street after five. Sure, he’d gone through the long interview process, but… It just pissed me off. 

I glanced at the clock and figured someone like Levi would still be working even after dinner time. So, I stormed out; my sights set on that blasted building and the short-ass in it. It was raining, and the main doors were locked tight, but there were still lights in some of the windows on the upper floors. 

So I waited. 

I sat on the curb, watching the cars speed past on the street and the pedestrians hurrying along huddled under umbrellas. It was cold, and the rain against my skin was one of the worst feelings of all. The longer I sat there, the more I wondered just what I was doing. Harassing some grouchy man in an attempt to have him help me make it big? It sounded ridiculous when it was put like that… 

Then the rain stopped. 

No, it hadn’t stopped – I could still see it pounding against the tarmac in front of me. It had just stopped hitting me. 

My eyes flicked to the side and saw the legs of the person standing beside me. As I lifted my head I realised they were holding an umbrella, one that covered me as well. 

Levi didn’t look at me. He stared straight out across the street, eyes not really focusing on anything in particular from what I could gather. He didn’t speak either. He just… waited. Holding that black umbrella over the two of us in silence. 

I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the ground. “Why aren’t I good enough?”

“You’re one persistent pain in my ass,” Levi muttered above me. “Give me one good reason I should take you on?”

“Because…” My hands balled into fists. “Because I want this more than anyone.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“It’s been five months. I’ve been coming here every day for five months, facing whatever you threw at me… _I want this more than anyone_.”

“Alright,” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand move towards me – I flinched, but it just hovered there nearby. “Give me your resume and audition tapes.”

“…What?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

I opened my mouth, but no sounds were making it out of my throat. I swear the world started to crumble around me as I realised I’d made a huge mistake. 

“I… I don’t have them with me.”

“You sent me thirty copies of your resume in one day, and you’re telling me that now you don’t have a single one?”

“…Yes, sir.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing myself for making such a stupid move. I knew I wanted to confront him tonight, and I didn’t have the fucking sense to pick up a single resume? Good job there asshole. 

There was a loud ‘tch’ from above me. “Whatever. Good thing I’ve already seen them.”

My spine straightened. “You’ve… seen them?”

As I looked up at Levi, he finally met me gaze – a harsh scowl on his face. “You’ve been pissing about here for five months, of course I’ve seen them.”

“ _And_?”

There was a pause, and I didn’t even care that I was probably staring at Levi with the most desperate eyes imaginable. 

His expression softened. It was barely noticeable, but I could just about see the tension in his forehead lessen. 

“Not bad.”

My heart and stomach felt like they were doing the tango or something. The relief and joy that I felt from those two small words was enough to threaten my eyes with tears. I couldn’t say anything. I just sat there on the curb, smiling like an idiot. 

“Be at my office nine o clock sharp tomorrow,” Levi ordered. “It’s just a meeting, not a contract signing.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And get your ass home out of the rain. I’m not having some snotty kid coming into my office with a cold tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir!”

I leapt up off the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding hitting my head off Levi’s umbrella since he held it higher just in time. He glowered at me, as if it had been a personal offence to him to make him move it. But a moment later, he shoved it into my hands. 

“Eh… Mr Levi–?” I shouted as he left the umbrella with me and stared walking away.

“Just Levi. And I have a car, unlike you.”

“T-thank you!”

“Oh yeah,” He paused in the street and turned back to me. Rain drops dripping down his cheeks. “What’s your full name?”

“Eren Jaeger.”

Levi gave a small nod, and went back on his way again. He lifted a hand as if to ive me a fleeting wave. “Don’t be late tomorrow, Eren.”

And that was how I ended up on the Recon Corps’ books. Working under the most acclaimed agent in the business.

And then I _really_ got under the most acclaimed agent in the business… but that’s a slightly longer story.


	2. Envelope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren gets some really big news, and then proceeds to act like a total dork around his agent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's little I love more than a good bit of Eren/Mikasa sibling love.   
> Except maybe blushing idiot Eren. 
> 
> These chapters are sort of shorter than what I usually write, but hopefully what I've got planned for next chapter will make up for it!
> 
> Anyways, you guys can find me on [tumblr here](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com) if you wish. Please enjoy!

I was late. Mikasa swore it was because I’d slept through my alarm, leaving me the only one to blame. However, I figure it’s sort of easy to sleep through an alarm when your pain of a sister turns it off after five seconds because she ‘was working late and needs sleep’. So yeah, no matter what she said, it was entirely her fault I was late. 

God, Levi was going to kill me…

If there was one thing I’d leant in the one year of working with Levi, it was that he was supremely strict when it came to punctuality, appearance, and cleanliness. So bearing in mind I was now two hours late to our morning meeting, hadn’t had a chance to get a shower this morning, or iron my shirt… he was probably going to wring my neck. 

As I reached the offices, I hurried inside and gave my greetings to Nifa – who looked positively horrified that I’d dared to appear so late. Behind me, I heard the sound of a horse, and decided not to turn to say hello to Jean since I could only deal with so much confrontation in one day. I did, however, glance over my shoulder at him when he was leaving. There was no way he should be leaving already; Hanji was his agent, and she liked having her guys on call here when they were waiting on call-backs and the like. There was some dark-haired guy I didn’t recognise walking out with him, so I assumed he had some sort of other appointment. 

The elevator ride seemed to drag on forever, and once it finally reached the floor with Levi’s office the doors opened to reveal Hanji waiting to get on. 

“Ah Eren! Late, aren’t you?” she said as I stepped out. I forced a laugh, but she continued speaking anyway. “Have you seen Jean? I’ve got to tell him something!”

“I just saw him leave.”

“What? Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know, he was with some guy.”

Hanji leapt forward, grabbing my shoulders and tugging me towards her. “A freckled guy?”

I found myself unconsciously leaning back as her face moved closer and closer to mine. “I don’t know… maybe?”

“AGH!” Throwing her hands up in the air, Hanji stormed past me into the elevator, slamming her fist against the button to send her down. Just before the doors closed, her lips curved into an evil smirk. “Well… since shorty stole my joy of telling Jean… You nabbed yourself a movie role, Eren!”

“Wait, what?”

The lift doors slid closed, shutting out Hanji’s cackling from my earshot, and leaving me standing there totally confused.

Did she… say movie role?

I swear to God my heart stopped in my chest as I sprinted down that hallway like my life depended on it. Hell, for all I knew, it did! Levi’s office door was shut, and in the back of my mind I remembered he’d pummel me if I didn’t knock first. 

So I knocked. 

Whilst in the middle of bursting into the room. 

“I got a part?” I cried as I finally came to a stop. 

Levi was sitting at his desk, fumbling through a pile of papers, and glanced up at me as I entered. His eyebrows twitched and narrowed as he obviously replayed what I’d just said, before tutting and looking back down. 

“Shitty glasses…” he muttered coldly. 

I started to step into the room. “What part?”

“Shut the door, brat.”

“Part?” I repeated. 

As I finally sat down in the seat opposite Levi’s desk, he reached down and pulled a folder out of one of the desk drawers, dropping it in front of me with a ‘thud’. He made no sign that he was going to say anything more.

Like hell I was going to sit and wait around politely for him to explain, especially when I was pretty sure the words on that folder read ‘Eren Jaeger: HLH Contract’. My hands were shaking as I picked it up. With one more uncertain glance in Levi’s direction – he was watching me expressionless out the corner of his eye – I opened it and pulled out the first page. 

No. 

Freaking. 

Way.

“T-this is…” 

“Nicholas Frost, the main character of Humanity’s Last Hope.”

“I’m… I’m the…”

“Main. Lead. Central. Take your pick.”

I slumped back into the seat. My mind was a muddle of emotions – disbelief mainly. Levi sat watching, waiting for my reaction. 

Humanity’s Last Hope was a war film being made by the best people in the film industry. Director Dot Pixis had been working with the top writers, and had spent the last year looking for the most talented crew members. When the time for casting came round, it was a miracle Levi had even gotten me an audition for it; and for a main part, no less. 

_The_ main part… apparently. 

“Go to the break room and let it sink in for a bit,” Levi said, snatching the folder from my grasps. “It’s not like I can work through the contract with you if you’re just going to sit there with your mouth hanging open.”

“O-ok…”

As I stood – shit my legs felt numb – Levi tossed another envelope my way, one that only just managed to catch. 

“Character Information. Read up.”

“Sure.”

The world was moving slower than normal. Or maybe I was. I couldn’t really tell. I left Levi’s office, not really able to process what I was holding in my hands and what it meant. Thankfully, the break room was only a short lift ride down to the next floor… I don’t think I could have made it much further. 

As I stepped in, I was met by a chorus of greetings from familiar voices. Armin, Connie and Sasha were all sitting round one of the tables, cards in hand and what looked like a poker game set out. 

“Late today, aren’t you Eren?” Connie asked, throwing a chip into the middle of the game. 

I dropped into the free seat beside Armin with a noise that was supposed to be agreement, but I don’t think it got across properly. 

Armin lowered his cards a little, leaning forward to try and get a good look at my face. “Something wrong?”

“I… got the part…”

Sasha asked something that I suppose was meant to be ‘What part?’, but her mouth was jam-packed with a doughnut. 

I picked up one of the spare chips that were in front of my seat (I guess they had belonged to Jean before he’d buggered off). Flipping it between my fingers, I felt the smile starting to tug at my lips. 

“Humanity’s Last Hope. I got the part,” Yep. There was the smile. The more I thought about it, the more I said in front of my friends, the wider it got. “The _main_ part.”

“Seriously?” Connie gasped. 

I waved the envelope at them. “Nicholas Frost. The last hope of humanity, himself.”

The three of them cheered loud enough for me. Armin leapt at me, throwing his arms around my neck and nearly strangling me. He rambled his congratulations, but it was drowned out by Connie and Sasha screams, and then the two of them jumped up and started twerking in celebration. Infected by their excitement, I let myself hug Armin back and burst into laughter. 

It didn’t feel real. The tightness of my chest, my stomach’s flips, my shaking hands… it felt like it was all something I’d just imagined. My cheeks were aching from how widely I was smiling, and I couldn’t stop no matter how hard I tried. 

Armin had released me, but was violently tugging on my arm to make me open the envelope and read the profile. Halfway through ripping it open, I had to stop. My teeth sunk into my lip and I buried my face into the flimsy paper, forcing myself to breathe and keep these fucking tears that were approaching at bay. 

I’d been working towards this since I was ten: acting classes, clubs, and performance colleges. Then it’d taken me five months to get an agent. For nearly two years since then, I’d been slaving away under Levi; building up a proper resume, taking on any film or show extra that was going, paid or not. The closest I’d gotten to a proper acting job was a small part in a low-budget film playing a kid whose mother had died. Sure, maybe there were other people who weren’t as lucky as I’d been, but that moment I sat there holding my character information was the moment it finally felt like I was doing something with my life. It felt like things were finally starting.

A hand was rubbing my back, and everyone had fallen silent. Sucking it up and pulling myself together, I sat up sharply and ripped the rest of the envelope open. 

Nicholas Frost was a young, but promising soldier who is part of a special operations team in the army. After their old leader gets killed, the members of the team vote for Nicholas to take control for their next mission. He’s supposed to be this dedicated, over-enthusiastic fighter with no particular talent but his unyielding determination…

“Well now we know why you got the part, Eren,” Connie joked (he and Sasha had moved to read it over my shoulder). Armin hushed him, and we all continued reading. 

There was some information on his upbringing and his family (dead mother, missing father, the usual story I guess), but most of his history focused on his relationship with his girlfriend Sally. They get married just before Nick heads out on the mission that’s the focus of the story. So… I suppose that meant I’d have to be in some love scenes…? The envelope didn’t include who the rest of the cast was, so I didn’t even have an idea who’d be playing Sally. 

It then went on to explain about his team: the main members consisting of two dudes called Jake and Christopher (their brief introductions sounded like they had more romance than Nick and Sally), and then there was Vincent – the character who eventually betrays Nick and the others. 

“Excited?” Sasha asked, propping her chin on the top of my head. 

“You could say that… yeah,” I put the information on the table and tried to let my mind take this all in. 

“You need to ring Mikasa and tell her!” Armin prompted, already reaching into my jumper pocket to see if he could get my phone. 

I took it off him and scrolled through my contacts until I found her number. I doubted she’d pick up her mobile if she was catching up on sleep, so the house phone would have to do. I pressed call and waited, listening to the shrill ring for quite some time before it finally stopped. 

“Hello?” Mikasa’s croaky voice asked – I felt sort of bad, she must have really been working hard. 

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Eren? What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

“Um… you could say that yeah,” I leaned to the side in my chair, kicking Connie away since he was trying to steal the phone from me. “Remember that film I auditioned for a month or so ago?”

“The war one?”

“Yeah, well…” I grinned: I could almost imagine her excitement already. “I got the part! The lead role!”

She didn’t respond. 

My smile faltered as I tried to listen for any noise whatsoever. It didn’t even sound like she was breathing, never mind anything else. Glancing across at Armin, I shrugged, hoping he’d pick up on my confusion. 

Mikasa gasped suddenly. “Really…?”

“Really.”

I swear I heard a small stifled sob. 

“Eren… that’s amazing…” I relaxed upon hearing her; Mikasa didn’t usually show emotions that clearly, but I could actually hear the happiness in her voice. It was higher, lighter than usual; her words sounded breathy, almost like she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying – not that I could blame her. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you,” I smiled. Armin tapped my shoulder, pointing my attention to the doorway where a certain short agent of mine stood. Levi nodded, showing he wasn’t going to interrupt my phone conversation. I supposed he figured I’d had long enough for the news to sink in. 

“You know what you need to do?” Mikasa’s voice said again. It was a lot more upbeat this time. “You need to celebrate. Celebrate with the people who’ve been by your side all this time. Go out somewhere nice, you deserve it.”

Yeah. Now she said it, I did deserve it. I was already thinking of an Italian I’d been dying to go to, but was just a little out of my price range. But this news really deserved a proper night out, no matter the price. And like Mikasa said, I should take out those who’d helped me until now; pay them back and thank them. 

“So how about us and Armin–”

I jumped out of my seat, suddenly feeling my face reddening with nerves. “Levi! W-would you mind coming out with me… tonight? To celebrate? W-with dinner?”

I don’t think I even breathed – nor did any of the spectators, for that matter. 

Levi hadn’t even flinched from his position with his arms folded, leaning against the doorway. His expression hadn’t changed either. He just stood. Looking at me. His usual uninterested face staring right through me.

Then he gave a small sigh, closing his eyes. “Fine.”

He turned, propping the folder that he’d been carrying on his shoulder. I couldn’t bring myself to even smile yet, he was still watching me with a suddenly intense gaze. 

“We can discuss the contract later. I’ll pick you up at 8. Don’t dress like a homeless brat. Try to get a shower too.”

With that, he left. 

“Jesus fuck… _my_ heart was pounding there,” Sasha muttered behind me. 

My smile widened again, and I clenched my fist. “Did you hear that, Mikasa? Levi actually said yes!”

The other end of the line was silent for a moment. 

“Wonderful,” she finally said – her voice sounded strained for some reason. I didn’t have time to dwell on it though – Mikasa was never fond of Levi, and that wasn’t my problem. What was my problem was exactly what I was supposed to wear tonight.

“Crap, does he mean I have to wear a suit?” I asked, not really directing the question at Mikasa, she just happened to be listening. “Or would that be too much? I didn’t really specify where I had in mind, so… Ah, hang on, is he picking me up from home? I suppose so, if he wants me to change. 8 is pretty far away though… I should probably still get home now and start getting ready though, huh? Levi will be pissed if I’m running late.”

“Eren…” Armin’s hand fell on my shoulder, distracting me from my ramblings. “Mikasa had a late night, didn’t she? Maybe you should let her sleep for now.”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry Mikasa! I just wanted you to know as soon as possible.”

“Yeah… I know,” The strain in Mikasa’s voice lightened only slightly. “I really am happy for you, Eren. I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks,” I could hear her on the other side fidgeting as if she was about to hang up. “Mikasa?”

“Yes?”

I smiled. “You, me and Armin will do something to celebrate this weekend, when you’ve rested, yeah?”

“…Ok.” There is was: the smile back in her voice. 

I hung up, shoving the phone back in my pocket with a sigh. Beside me Armin chuckled. 

“She’ll be happy hearing that.”

“Of course,” I chuckled. “Now…”

I spun, reaching out and grabbing Armin’s shoulders as tightly as possible. He jumped and tried to wriggle out of my grip to no avail. 

“Armin. You have to help me find something to where.”


	3. Starting with a 1988 red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren lets himself be dragged to a mystery destination for his celebratory dinner with Levi... and there's booze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look. Actual developments. 
> 
> Also, I know nothing about wine at all - don't drink it, don't like it - so if what is in here is wrong in any way, I apologise, my research into the world of wine was rather fruitless and confusing. 
> 
> You guys can find me on [tumblr here](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com). Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy! ^^

It’s sort of rare for me to get seriously nervous about something – personally, I think one of my good traits is my ability to not dwell too much on upcoming tasks (mainly auditions) and just jump in head first, usually it works in my favour, and then I have the time to be nervous or panicked once it’s all over. However, four hours before Levi was due to pick me up, I was hovering by the bathroom for fear of throwing up. 

That feeling didn’t vanish as I sat in the passenger seat of Levi’s car on the way to wherever. 

In the end, I’d opted for a full suit and tie, and it was damn lucky I had since Levi was wearing attire just as formal. He hadn’t said much since picking me up, and honestly, my stomach was still doing enough roly-poly’s that I was starting to wonder if tonight was going to even be worth the nerves I was suffering through. 

It was already dark, and the street lights quickly passed over our heads as Levi drove further and further from the city centre – it felt like the world was flashing this warm orange glow on Levi’s blank face as he stared ahead. 

I shuffled awkwardly in my seat, thinking back to Mikasa’s words just before Levi had arrived. 

_“Why are you so nervous? I don’t get why you’re working yourself up over that short-arse. I mean, it’s just dinner.”_

Sure, it was ‘just dinner’, but that didn’t make me feel any less excited–

NERVOUS! I was nervous. Not excited. Not particularly. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going all goo-goo over my agent. Geez. 

“Eren?”

“YESSIR!”

I straightened up so tall, so quickly that I hit my head off the doorframe I’d been leaning a little too close to. I cringed and clutched at the top of my head, before glancing over at Levi. Sure enough, he was looking at me with one of his typical ‘what the hell are you doing’ looks. 

Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention back to the road. “You haven’t even asked where we’re going.”

“Ah… well, you seemed to have somewhere in mind already,” I said, forcing myself to relax a little into the seat. “So I figured I’d just see when we get there. I’ll probably like it anyway.”

“Hmm? You have an awful lot of trust in me.”

I felt my lips twitch upwards. “Of course.”

“Well let’s hope you don’t regret it.” As he spoke, he took a sharp turn into a parking lot. We weren’t exactly on the city outskirts, but we were certainly in the quieter, less populated part of the city. It was only as I stared up at the restaurant front that I realised this area was also the obnoxiously rich area…

“This is…” I lost the ability to finish the sentence as Levi pulled up right at the front door and started getting out of the car. I couldn’t even get out of my seat – I was too busy staring open-mouthed as a valet ran over to collect the keys from Levi. 

My door opened, making me jump in surprise and Levi stared down at me with a glint in his eyes that I may even dare to call smug. 

“Sina. Top restaurant in the city,” he finished for me. He tapped his foot impatiently and held his hand out. “You want to come in, or not?”

I swear, my cheeks did not heat up as I took his hand and let him tug me out the car. The valet smiled and ushered us into the restaurant before turning to park Levi’s car. The moment we stepped inside, the upper-class atmosphere hit me like a ton of bricks; the walls were a deep brown wood, and made the white furniture only stand out more. Tiny splashes of rich purple or red could be found all over the room: on the sides of the menu, the book the host was checking on his table, the napkins sticking out of each server’s jacket pocket. 

Levi gave his name to the host, who produced to quickly check for the reservation, and then led us to the table. We were sat on a small table right by the windows overlooking the garden where the outside bar was; a small fountain directly outside that my eyes kept being drawn to. Once our menus had been handed to us, we were left alone. 

I glanced at Levi, who was browsing through the wine menu and leaned over to whisper to him. “I don’t think I can even afford to breathe in this place…”

“Then be grateful for the opportunity,” he said without even looking up. 

“But I was going to pay!”

There was a sharp chuckle from my agent, who peered up at me with a raised eyebrow. He smirked. “Like I’d let a brat like you buy me some cheap-ass meal. You’re not a famous actor yet, Jaeger.”

I picked up my menu and made a show of staring intently at it. Before I even realised, I was muttering under my breath. “When I get paid from this movie I’m going to buy you the most expensive dinner ever…”

“I look forward to it.”

I didn’t look up again – instead focusing on the horrendous price list in front of me, and keeping the image of his smile on the edge of my mind–

I mean, I was marvelling at his ability to smile. I was not going all loopy over my agent’s gorgeous smile. Christ. 

“Can I get your drinks, sirs?” a pleasant voce asked as it stepped beside our table. 

“What year’s the Domaine Armand?” Levi asked. 

“The red? 1988, sir.”

“Bottle of that…” He trailed off, glancing over at me. “Do you drink wine?”

I blinked. “Um, yeah.”

“Good,” Levi nodded approvingly and nodded to the waitress. “Bottle of that then.”

The waitress started writing on her notebook, so I took the opportunity to take a glance at one of the spare wine lists on the table. Levi didn’t try and stop me, just sat watching as I glanced down the prices. 

Jesus…

I could have fainted on the spot. 

“T-that’s £285 a bottle…” I stammered. 

Levi’s expression didn’t shift even the slightest bit. “Better like it then.”

There was a light chuckle from the waitress, and she reached down to take the wine list out of my grasp. It was only at that point that I looked at her properly and came to the worst realisation imaginable…

I knew her. 

As her face clicked into place in my head, she seemed to recognise me too. Ilse Langer; the poor, suffering neighbour living beside Jean, Connie and Sasha. She’s seen me plenty of times, usually whilst I wasn’t exactly in the soberest of minds. 

And when I say she’d seen plenty of me, I mean she’d seen _plenty_ of me – all thanks to a dare gone wrong for me and Kirschtein. 

The two of us exchanged a more than awkward nod of acknowledgement, she went off to go collect our wine. I returned my attention to the menu in hopes of finding something that wasn’t too overpriced to order. 

Conversation with Levi didn’t exactly flow, but I think he was focusing on picking his food… or at least I hope that’s why he remained so silent. Ilse returned with the wine quite quickly, and also a jug of water for the table – I supposed that was customary in places like this? She lingered a little longer, asking if we were ready to order our food or not, which left me in something of a panic. 

Were we ordering starters? Or just main courses? Didn’t places like these have like seven courses or something ridiculous? I stared at my menu, my mouthing opening and closing as I wavered between which to say first. Levi was just staring at me the whole time, but thankfully he gave a snort of amusement. 

“Just stick to a main, if you’re going to panic over the price so much,” he said, picking up his own menu and holding it out to Ilse. “I’ll have the lamb.”

“Then, can I have risotto?” I asked, handing her my menu as well. 

Ilse nodded and noted in down. “No problem. Thank you very much.” She vanished almost as quickly as she appeared, leaving Levi and I alone… with no menus to keep our attention on. 

I may as well have been twiddling my thumbs, the silence was that awkward. I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t been alone with Levi before – work had meant that had happened plenty of times – but this was the first time we’d been totally alone in recreational time. Not only that, but he’d brought me to the most expensive restaurant in the city? Wearing suits. Can I really be blamed for being a tad lost for words?

“Are you excited?”

“Huh?” I looked up, just in time to see Levi pouring the wine into my glass. 

“For the film,” He moved the bottle to his own glass. “Are you excited?”

“Ah! Yeah, I suppose I am,” I found myself smiling at the thought: I was going to get to be the star of one of the biggest movies in years. There would be stunts and explosions and fight scenes; what was not to love? “It’s a little daunting, I guess…”

“It’ll be your first big role, of course it’s daunting. Actually, that isn’t a feeling that ever really goes away, no matter how many main parts you manage to grab.”

“Yeah… it feels like a lot of people are going to be depending on me…”

“Well, they are. So don’t screw it up.”

I actually found myself laughing at Levi’s nonchalant tone. His expression seemed to relax a little, and he held his wine glass out to me with a small expectant smile. 

“Well, here’s to not screwing up.”

I had to sigh at his comment, but lifted my own glass. They clinked together softly before each of us took a sip – I wasn’t some sort of wine connoisseur, but even I could tell this was damn good wine (though I suppose the price should have told me that before). After that, somehow, we actually talked. The conversation mainly focused around work to begin with, or what I thought of the character and the film plot, but once our main courses had arrived we found ourselves moving onto wider topics. The fact that I practically melted once I tasted the food probably helped the matter. 

Levi watched me with amusement, commenting that he was acquainted with the head chef here (though he also warned me not to expect a discount because of it). We weren’t even half-finished our meal before the wine had ran out – I honestly don’t have the slightest clue who’d been drinking so fast, since I was certain it hadn’t been me. 

We didn’t order more wine, but that didn’t mean the alcohol didn’t stop flowing. Levi ordered everything, and half the time I didn’t even know what Ilse was placing on the table for me next. I’m pretty sure there was whiskey involved, and possibly some vodka, and definitely cocktails. Lots of cocktails. Lots of high alcohol content cocktails. The more whiskey. 

Looking back, I probably should have realised something was going to happen if I didn’t stop downing the drinks being offered to me. We passed on desert – the drinks bill was already high enough, and Levi admitted to Ilse that he doubted I would appreciate the food in my state. 

I disagreed… but my words were slurring too much for that point to actually have a leg to stand on. 

My body also didn’t seem to have a leg to stand on, since as soon as I stood up I had to immediately sit back down. Levi watched me with a cocked eyebrow, smirking like he was waiting for me to fall flat on my face… which was very likely to happen at this point. 

He paid, refusing to let me see how much the final bill was, and stood in front of me. I think he said something about helping me out and not letting people realise how far gone I was, but I was being distracted by the pretty fountain out the window. A moment later, I was on my feet, and Levi’s arm was wrapped tight around my waist, holding me up. I blinked a bit, and then sniggered. He was so much shorter than me…

I would just like to reiterate how much alcohol Levi had pumped into me by this point, and how low my tolerance is to begin with. 

Levi started leading me out of the restaurant, his arm still around me, and in order to hide my giggles I made the terrible, _terrible_ decision of twisting downward to bury my face into Levi’s neck. I seem to recall him being in the middle of saying goodbye to Ilse and someone else in the doorway at this point… I don’t want to try and remember if that was right or not, seeing as I was quickly floored by whatever cologne Levi had on, and grabbed his sleeves tightly to try and sniff it all up from the crook of his neck. 

I am endlessly grateful that I do not remember exactly how Levi reacted. 

What I do remember, is sitting in the passenger seat of his car with the window rolled down and the city lights zipping by. I remember the radio was one. I remember glancing over at Levi at smiling tiredly as I realised he was looking back at me. And I remember him saying he was just going to let me crash at his, since he didn’t want to deal with my sister. 

Then I remember him pulling into one of the underground car parks of one of the fanciest apartment buildings in town. 

As he turned the engine off, I turned to him frowning. 

“Seriously?” I asked, pointing around. 

Levi’s lips lifted at the corners. “What? Didn’t expect me to be living the high life?”

“Not this high anyway…”

“I guess I don’t. But it impresses the right people.” He shrugged and got out the car, I was in the middle of trying (and failing) to find my own door’s handle, when he suddenly appeared and opened the door for me. 

I sat there staring up at him (well, I was mainly trying to de-blur his image). “Am I the right people?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do I need an over-sized, over-priced apartment to impress you?” 

“Not really…”

“Then no.”

He didn’t wait for me to say anything else, and started hauling me out the car. Yet again, his arm was around my waist as he led me towards the elevator to the upper floors. 

As it turned out, this building really was one of the rich apartment blocks – with each floor a whole apartment on its own. Levi had to use a passcode to make the lift go to his floor, and then once the doors opened we were in a tiny hallways with another door he had to open with an actual key. 

The place was huge – offensively so to a commoner like me – but what I did notice even in my drunken stupor was that there was pretty much no decoration whatsoever. Everything in the apartment seemed to be that modern, white shit that probably came with a place as expensive as this. There wasn’t a speck of Levi’s personal touch to be seen – unless you counted the unnatural cleanliness of the place. 

“Want a drink?” Levi asked, dropping me off on the living room sofa. The white leather squeaked beneath me – it didn’t seem to be used very often. 

“Noooo… yes. Yes. I shall have another drink!” I decided, hitting my fist into the palm of my hand like I’d just made the most decision in the universe. 

A minute later, Levi fell onto the sofa beside me and handed me a can of beer – hardly what I expected to be given in a place like this. His arm rested along the back of the sofa behind me, leaving me too self-conscious to lean back. 

“I’m kind of surprised you’re still letting me drink more,” I chuckled, snapping the can open and putting it to my lips. 

Levi copied my action. “We’re celebrating. Besides, I doubt you can get much drunker.”

“Don’t tempt me to try,” I warned. Peering across at him, he met my eyes with a challenging smirk. I took that as all the words I needed to take up the dare, and quickly went about gulping down the rest of my can’s contents. Gasping for air, I crushed the empty can on my knee and shot Levi a smug smile, only for another can to be shoved in my face – his open one.

“Don’t get too cocky, brat. There’s still plenty of booze around here if you want to play this game.”

I snatched the can from him and downed it too. There was no way I was losing to a guy like this…

… Honestly I don’t even know what I thought the competition was…

Levi seemed to take my willingness to down whatever he handed me as wonderful entertainment; after the beer we moved to the kitchen for shots. Every time I poured my own they got bigger and bigger, and more than once I warned Levi that I was drinking more than him – he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. 

I don’t know how long I lasted before my memory just stopped working. I didn’t black out, there’s evidence enough of that, but I certainly couldn’t remember anything else that happened after that. 

Though… I suppose that’s where common sense comes in…

…and the fact that I woke up in an unknown bed, with unknown marks all over my rather naked body didn’t require too much common sense to work things out. 

Especially when my agent lay beside me. Equally as narked, and equally as marked. 

Holy shit.


	4. Persistence Pays Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so Eren deals with the aftermath of his drunken night... and Levi doesn't help at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry... this chapter ended up so much longer than planned.   
> It also mainly consists of Eren being a little shit. Let us all pity Levi for having to deal with him. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for all your comments and things! I'm super glad you're enjoying it ^^
> 
> [My tumblr!](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)

I didn’t want to know what had happened. I didn’t want to know why I had to sit on one ass cheek because sitting normally hurt more than Mikasa’s punches. I didn’t want to know how all these hic- hick- _marks_ got all over me, or just what that rather large bruise on my hip was. I just wanted to know where my clothes were so I could get the fuck out of here before my agent woke up and kicked the shit out of me. 

… Actually, you know what? No. I _did_ want to know all those things because Jesus fucking Christ, just how much must I have drunk to get into this state?

Still, the simple fact remained that it was _Levi_ laying on his front beside me. Oh god, had I slept with my agent? Had I slept with my agent who is very much a guy? This is when I really needed my phone in my hand to call someone for advice…

…not that my any of my friends were people who I could just casually ring up and say “Hey, just woke up after what seems like a rather wild night of sex with Levi. What do I do?” without them either mocking me for the rest of eternity or just hanging up. 

The more I thought about it, the more I wished I could just force my eyelids open and wake up in another reality. Preferably one where I hadn’t shagged my agent.

“What are you doing?”

It seemed that Levi had just woken up to the image of me sitting up and trying to pull my eyelids as wide open as they would go. Don’t I just have fabulous luck?

“I… I-I…” 

Levi immediately caught on that I wasn’t going to produce understandable sentences for a while, and turned himself over so he could sit up and glance at the alarm clock by the bed. 

“Ah shit… we’re late for work,” the agent grumbled, reaching out to grab his phone and immediately start sending an email to someone. 

I watched him blankly for a moment, before his words hit me. “Late… oh god, work!” I buried my face in my hands, so they could muffle the horrified yelp that followed. _Work_. I _worked_ with Levi. People were going to realise. Everyone was going to know. 

Levi didn’t seem to share the same distress. “What are you freaking out about? The only person you work with is lying in bed with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re late.”

“I don’t really care about what time I’m going to get to the office!” I screeched, tearing my hands from my face to look at Levi. 

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “So I gathered from your consistent unpunctuality.”

“Why aren’t you reacting at all to the situation?”

“What situation?”

“ _This_ situation!” My hand moved between us quickly to try and make the point, but Levi just rolled his eyes and sunk back against his pillows and stifled a yawn. Really, he couldn’t be more lax about the whole ‘naked in bed with Eren’ thing! He might as well be sipping on tea and smoking or something! He just sat there, paying no attention to me as he continued to look through his phone, absentmindedly ruffling his hair… that I only now realised was sticking up in every direction both possible and impossible…

Levi had bedhair… and it was adora–

“Agh!” My hands returned to their place covering my face, and I vowed never to remove them again until Levi was dressed and out of my sight. My heart did not skip a beat at my agent’s bedhead, not matter how cute it looked! 

I groaned as I realised I was fighting a losing battle with my mind here. “What the hell did you do to me…?” 

“Excuse me?”

“Last night! How did it end up like this?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“You pouring drinks down my throat!”

There was a moment of silence as I tried to remember past that point… Nothing. It was all a huge blank, so I couldn’t even work out who had initiated all of this. Levi seemed completely unfazed by it all, so… maybe it was him…?

“Oi, look at me.”

I shuddered; Levi’s voice had turned cold all of a sudden. It was a tone I’d heard a few times before – the tone he took on when I’d pushed too many of his buttons and seriously pissed him off. My neck felt stiff as I slowly turned to look his way. 

Yep, he was glaring. 

Levi pretty much growled his next words. “Are you trying to ask if I jumped you?”

_Yes._

“No.”

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Levi sensed the lie. 

“You little shit… Do I look like the kind of guy who gets brats drunk and then takes advantage of them?”

My eyes darted down his torso that wasn’t hidden by the covers for a moment: the small body, jam-packed with muscles you wouldn’t expect unless you saw him naked or felt one of his kicks; the way he always either sat like a gangster or some posh sod with a huge superiority complex, no in between; the narrow eyes that always seemed dark and bore into your very soul; the usual thin scowl that he wore nine times out of ten…

…And I had to admit he did _sort of_ look like one of those guys…

I may not have been stupid enough to voice that thought, but I had been stupid enough to even dare to hesitate in my reply. Levi’s expression darkened. I flinched – trying to scramble out of the bed to avoid the repercussions – but I wasn’t quick enough. 

The end result was me cowering, curled up right on the edge of the bed, whimpering at the horrific pain shooting through me, and Levi getting out of bed totally cool – like he hadn’t just kicked me in the balls at all. 

“I didn’t even say anything!” I protested (it came out in pitiful wheezes though…).

“That was one of the problems,” Levi snarled as he wandered around the bed to the drawers that were opposite my side of it. 

There was a lot of shuffling about as he dug through them, and I recovered enough to open my eyes to look over to see what he was doing. I mean, it wasn’t hard to guess he was getting some clothes out, but I was waiting to see if he’d get any for me. Then again, as my eyes took in the back view of his short, naked body, I decided his clothes might not fit. 

You know… Levi’s muscles weren’t exactly new to me – hell, the first time I met him I was thrown out the door by him – it’s just… I never realised how _prominent_ those muscles were without clothes covering them. His shoulders, no matter how small he was, were sort of broad. Each movement of his shoulder blades seemed graceful somehow, and the lines of his back were defined and smooth. Even his ass looked strong… and… pretty distracting…

It was when a small, unplanned sigh escaped my lips after I stared for a little too long, that I realised Levi’s back had twisted. My eyes quickly flicked up, only to find him watching me, a small smirk playing at his lips. 

“And you’ve got the nerve to make me out as the pervert here,” he mocked. 

I frowned. “I was looking at your muscles.”

“Yeah, well you sure worked them last night.”

Heat flooded my face, and I prayed I wasn’t turning red. Levi just smirked again and started pulling on a pair of jogging bottoms – not even bothering with underwear, it seemed. 

“It was you who started this whole thing last night, if you really want to know,” Levi explained, wandering into an adjoining room that seemed to be a bathroom from what I could tell. I tugged the covers tighter around me, knitting my eyebrows together as I listened to Levi continue. “You got drunker, then you got clingy, then you got handsy. I tried to get you to go to bed in the guest room, because – no matter what you think – I don’t really enjoying fucking some idiot who is drunk out of his mind.”

I heard the shower burst into life, but it was mixed in with Levi’s bare feet slapping against the tiles, so he hadn’t gotten in yet. My stomach felt heavy with guilt; Levi never lied, not to his actors, not to me, and I felt disgusted I’d ever even contemplated that he’d taken advantage of me. 

“So… why did we end up like this?” I couldn’t help but ask. 

His form reappeared in this doorway, and he leant against the frame. Folding his arms across his chest, he stared back at me – wrapped up in his duvet, probably looking completely stupid or pitiful…

He didn’t say anything for quite a while, but then sighed and turned his gaze away. “I’ve always said you’re a persistent brat, haven’t I?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Sorry?” The scoff threw me off guard, and Levi was looking back my way in frustration. “Will you stop acting like we’ve done something ungodly? We’d both had too much to drink, and it resulted in a sex. Which,” His lips curled upwards. “Judging from your moans, you enjoyed just as much as I did.”

Ok, I was definitely blushing now. 

“Good company, good meal, good fuck. Hardly a bad night, in my opinion.” 

“R-right.”

Levi nodded in approval at my agreement, and pointed behind him with his thumb. “Right. Now go clean yourself up. I’ll send your suit out for dry cleaning with mine, so just borrow the clothes I’ve left in there for you.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

“I’m telling you to get your ass in the shower. Like hell are you just lying in my bed all gross.”

If it were anyone else, I would have snapped back. However, I knew better than to defy Levi when it came to cleanliness; that didn’t mean I didn’t glower at him from my cocoon though. He raised his eyebrows at my lack of movement and walked over. I curled up more, protecting my lower half for fear of another kick. 

What I didn’t expect, was for him to grab me – duvet cocoon and all – and throw me over his shoulder. 

“Put me down!” I shouted. It was quickly joined by a groan when I realised a certain part of my nether regions still ached to high heavens. 

I swear I heard a breathy chuckle from Levi as he carried me over to bathroom and dumped me (rather more delicately, thank god) in the empty bath. Stepping back, he nodded to the running shower – it was in a smaller sort of enclosure attached to the room – and pointed out where the various soaps and shampoo were. 

“Get in, before I take it open myself to unwarp the Eren burrito,” was his last warning as he left the room – not bothering to shut the door behind him. 

I hate to admit it, but the bath was so big, so deep, that I sort of felt amazingly comfortable laying there in it, still wrapped tightly. The only thing that stopped me from just falling asleep there and then was Levi’s order. Naked body tossing isn’t really something I’d like to partake in, and I’m pretty sure that was what would happen if I remained in that bath for too long. 

My whole body felt stiff as I clambered out and started padding around the bathroom. The mirror that took up most of the wall in front of the benches and sink did an awfully good job at showing me just how much of me was covered in dark marks, and the more I looked at it, the more I realised the bruise on my hip was definitely left by fingers. Just how strong was the short bastard anyway? I prodded at the various marks, trying to judge whether they were painful or not – but they weren’t too bad. 

The shower was huge. Way too big for someone so little. Hell, I felt dwarfed standing in the middle as the water pounded down on me from overhead. The racks that lined one wall were packed with orderly lines of bottles and other weird stuff that I’m pretty sure only belonged in some preppy high school girl’s shower. It took more time than I care to admit for me to actually find a body wash and something to wash my hair with, even though Levi had tried to point them out. I mean, seriously, the guy was probably old enough to go bald soon – why the hell did he need so many hair products?

I chuckled to myself, but decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to enlighten Levi to the fact. 

I spent perhaps a little too long in the shower, and only came out after Levi shouted “You fucking jacking off in there or something, brat?” But I still took my time getting ready. I dried myself off with the towel that had been left out, and started examining what else Levi had tucked away in here. The medicine cabinet was boring as hell – just the usual first aid stuff, most of which had never been touched. Did this guy get sick? There wasn’t even any Viagra in there, which was somewhat of a disappointment; that could have been wonderful blackmail material. 

The drawer that was pretty much overflowing with condom packets and lube would probably have surprised me a little more if I hadn’t gotten a good look at his ass earlier – now I figured I sort of understood if he got laid quite a bit… 

Levi had left out a t-shirt and shorts for me, and my own pair of boxers that had apparently been washed at some point. It was a good thing Levi was quite broad, or else I don’t think the top would have fit. And it was painfully obvious he’d given me shorts to save us both the embarrassment of his trousers been super short for me. 

Throwing the duet back onto Levi’s bed, I peered out into the rest of the apartment to try and see what he was doing. He was just standing by the table, sipping on a coffee… his eyes still on the phone in his hand. 

He looked up as I approached and motioned to a mug sitting on the table. As I sat down, I’m certain I saw him giving me a quick once over from the corner of my eye. 

“I hope you’re not a food person in the mornings, because you’re not getting any here,” Levi warned. 

“I’m never really a food person after a night of drinking,” I promised, gladly taking the coffee and gulping some down – not even worrying about how it scorched the back of my throat. 

“I’m surprised you don’t have a hangover after how much you drank.”

“I have to be drinking for a hell of a long time before I get ill with hangovers,” I turned to him and tapped my lips. “That’s the benefit to having a low tolerance. I just get a fuzzy mouth, normally.”

“Hmm.”

Levi returned his attention to his phone, and I took the opportunity to try and think back to the previous night (again). If there was one downside to my ability to avoid bad hangovers, it was that it was very easy for me to just forget what happens when I’m drunk. I don’t even remember flirting with Levi, never mind getting ‘handsy’ with him, like he said I did. 

I mean, I think I remember trying to cuddle into him as we talked about something… I think it was Italy? Yes, it must have been, because there’s a painting of the Amalfi Coast hanging above his TV… even now it catches my eye. That’s right. We’d been sitting on the sofa, and as we talked I’d slunk down to rest my head on his lap. His fingers had threaded through my hair, just stroking as we’d talked about how beautiful the views there must be. If I thought carefully enough, I could still feel where his fingers danced around my head, sending tingles along my scalp. 

That was definitely the last memory I could conjure though, and I found myself wondering just what had gone through my head after that. I never imagined I was the type to sleep with someone when drunk, so maybe I’d just been completely captivated by him somehow. Maybe he’d become softer, kinder, when we were alone and drinking. He’d already been noticeably more relaxed at dinner, so maybe he’d let go even more in his apartment. Maybe I spotted something in his eyes. Maybe I’d felt his hands and been desperate for more. Maybe we’d kissed and that had been enough to set desires ablaze. 

Kissed… huh… I couldn’t imagine that. We must have, right? We’d had sex, so it was only logical that our lips had been on one another’s at some point, right? There was evidence enough that he’d kissed me _elsewhere_ so… 

It was crazy! I was just sitting there, hands wrapped around the coffee mug, wondering what it was like to kiss my agent. Trying to work out how experienced he was, how he worked his tongue, how much he liked to control his partner. Was he a biter? A sucker? Did he hold me by my cheeks, my neck, my waist? It was like this creepy, fucked up mystery my mind was desperate to unravel. 

And… I think I actually regretted not remembering…

“Eren.”

“Hm?”

“How long are you planning to stare for?”

Shit.

Since when had I been staring at his lips? And, more importantly…

Since when had he been inches away from my face?

I couldn’t even jump back in shock as I registered how close he was, I just froze in fear and forced my eyes up to meet his. He was completely unreadable and I hated it. Levi’s eyes bore into me, his lips remained in an emotionless line. 

And yeah, that loud noise was definitely my heart. 

“Something interesting, brat?” Levi asked, his voice almost growling. 

I shuddered. “I was… just thinking…” 

“Oh? And what about?” He leaned closer, only now a slight grin peeking through his features. I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a slight gasp. A hand snuck around me, grabbing the back of the chair as Levi leant over me. “Upset you don’t recall last night’s fun?”

_Very._

Again, my attempts to speaking failed as Levi moved even closer. His breath brushed against my face as he chuckled.

Shaking his head, he straightened up. “Damn, you really need to learn how to respond to stuff like that. Next time someone will actually take advantage of you.” 

He moved to walk away, and my stomach sank when I realised he’d been trying to mess with me. And yet, I didn’t get angry or throw some snarky comment his way. 

I grabbed his arm. 

Don’t ask me what I was thinking, because I don’t know. Hell, I probably wasn’t even thinking at all. I just grabbed him.

“Eren…” he said, his voice low in warning as he turned back to me. 

My tongue darted across my lips. “…kiss me.”

He just stared. 

“Kiss me.”

“Why?”

That was a good question. 

“I don’t know.” 

That wasn’t a good answer. 

Levi rolled his eyes, but actually stepped closer again. He leant down, fingers reaching up and sweeping across my cheek lightly. 

“See? Persistent little shit.”

Cupping my face with his hand, he tilted my head back more and our noses brushed together. His eyes never left mine, not for even the briefest of seconds, and that alone made my chest tighten. He hovered above me, our breaths falling in sync as our gazes refused to wander from each other. Then he leant down the last few inches. 

Levi’s lips were softer than I expected… and the moment they were pressed against mine my eyelids fluttered shut of their own accord. He began to pull away after only a brief moment of contact, but my hand tightened around his arm and kept him to me. I felt like I was drowning. Just sinking into him as his teeth nipped my lower lip and ordered my mouth open. My breath hitched when his tongue skimmed against mine, and he chuckled in response before tilting my head back even further and kissing me deeper. 

By the time he pulled back, I was desperate for air, panting and in an utter daze of… _Levi_ , I guess. When I’d regained enough composure to open my eyes, I found myself staring up at Levi’s smirking face. His thumb ran across my lips. 

“There. Now you have something to actually remember.” The warmth of his hands left my face, and he strode back across the room to place his cup in the sink. 

I was left to sit there, covering my mouth with my hand to try and forget the lingering sensation on them. 

“Watch TV or something,” Levi said as he walked past me again, moving towards the bedroom. “I’m taking a shower, then I’ll take you home.”

“Home?” I asked, still not entirely back on planet earth. 

Levi paused and raised his eyebrows. “We can go straight to the office if you want, but I figured you’d want to change first.”

Oh yeah… I was still in Levi’s shorts…

He left, and I sat listening as the shower turned back on and he clattered about in the bathroom. It took a while before I got myself together enough to head over to the sofa and switched a random channel on the TV. 

My heart was still doing flips and tricks in my chest. I could still feel Levi’s lips on me. If one short kiss could leave me like this… then I really was missing out by not remembering last night. 

The corners of my mouth were tugged upwards by my thoughts, and I sunk into the cushions and let the faint noise of the TV surround me. 

As weird and unexpected as the situation was, I wasn’t feeling too bothered about it now. At least, not in a bad way. Besides, there was one thing I could be proud of.

He totally said I was a good fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, to those who have read [Playing Off Him](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1050621/chapters/2101746) (the JeanMarco side of this story), and are wondering about why Eren claims to not get hangovers after what happens in Chapter 10, it shall make sense when this story catches up to that part! (I promise my continuity isn't that bad!)
> 
> But yes, from this point on expect to notice a lot more parallels with POH, since we're about to jump into the movie filming!


	5. Dragging On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems the studio is a place where people manhandled Eren a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaannd here's your next chapter! This one is quite heavily linked to Playing Off Him, so yes, you might see some direct quotes. 
> 
> Reminder: This story does include spoilers for the manga! (Albeit sort of indirectly).
> 
> You guys can find me [on tumblr](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com) as always! Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!!

In the two weeks that followed, it felt like Levi had completely forgotten everything that happened that night and the following morning. Every moment I saw him he was totally focused on work: contract negotiating, schedule checking, crew meetings… it was getting ridiculous. I’m not complaining that we was busy – there was nothing more thrilling than the lead up and preparation for the shooting of this movie – I’m just saying it was really weird (and, I’ll admit, a little hurtful) that Levi hadn’t even glanced at me without ‘work’ written all over his face. 

And yeah, it was even weirder that I was getting stressed over this. 

Whatever the case, as I reached the company on the morning of our first proper read-through of ‘Humanity’s Last Hope’, I found myself watching Levi’s every move as we waited in the lobby for Hanji and Jean to arrive. I’d sort of forgotten up until this point that Kirschtein had also gotten a spot on the main cast for this movie, so I couldn’t suppress a sigh when he trudged towards us. 

“Right, we better leave now that everyone’s here!” Hanji sang, ushering us outside towards the car park where the company cars stayed. Jean and I slid into the backseat, whilst our agents argued over who was driving (Levi won, after pointing out last time Hanji had driven him somewhere, they’d ended up an hour away from their destination). 

Kirschtein looked shifty –like when people don’t know whether to be excited or nervous. As much as I hated to imagine my face resembled his in the slightest, I figured I must have a pretty similar expression as Levi started to pull out onto the main road. 

I smirked. “I’m so glad you’re on this movie too, Jean. I was getting nervous that I wouldn’t know the horse I was riding.”

“Can’t you come up with better jokes, Jaeger?” Jean scoffed – though his eye most definitely twitched. 

“Your face is enough of a joke as is,” I shrugged. 

“And yet you’ve had the same number of girlfriends as me,” It was Jean’s turn to smirk now, as he turned his head to look at me. “What does that tell you about _your_ face?”

Before I’d even opened my mouth to retort, a low sigh from Levi in the front shut me up. I totally didn’t blush and stare at my feet instead of continuing the argument with Jean… definitely not. 

The rest of the car ride passed rather quietly – with the exception of Hanji’s non-stop ramblings about how proud she was of me and Jean, and that we would no doubt be brilliant. By the time we’d pulled up at the studio and started getting out, it had turned into her whining to Levi about how her ‘boys were running off into the big world’. He looked just as interested in her complaints as I was. My eyes remained fixed on the back of his head as we started moving towards a group of people just in front of the entrance. He didn’t turn around to look at me even once.

Dot Pixis – the insane but super famous director in charge of this film – turned and smiled as we approached. He quickly greeted us and introduced us to the people he was with (producers and the assistant director Petra, who’d I’d met numerous times before). Jean had started to some guy I didn’t know, but thought I recognised… oh, it was that dark-haired guy I’d seen him with when I heard about the part. I didn’t know why he was here… or why Jean looked so disgustingly happy to see him.

Looking up at the studio towering over me, I felt my heart rate pick up. This was really happening. I was really here, and it was all about to start. I turned quickly towards Levi, my mouth open and ready to try and tell him how grateful I was that he’d helped me get here – I just needed to get some of this excitement off my chest. I quickly snapped my mouth closed again, however, when I realised Levi was already deep in a conversation with Pixis and some of the others. Strange… I hadn’t expected that sort of thing would make me feel so… _alone_.

This was ridiculous. So what if he was talking to someone else? Was I seriously getting jealous over this? Shaking the thoughts from my head, I decided that I’d just have to barge my way into Jean’s conversation – like hell was I just going to stand here in silence waiting for Levi to fucking give me attention. 

“Oi, Jean. Who’s this?” I asked, glancing at the dark-haired boy and waiting for an explanation off horseface.

Kirschtein didn’t reply, but his friend smiled and held a hand out to me. “Marco Bodt, playing Sole.”

“Oh!” Shit, I knew that name. So this was another one of the main actors, huh? I quickly took his hand. “I’m playing Frost. Eren Jaeger.” 

Well, at least this guy seemed pretty cool – much too cool to be so friendlier with Jean (not that I really understood how they already knew each other). I didn’t hear Pixis start saying that we should perhaps head in, and instead found myself sharing small talk with Marco (and a very quiet, very moody looking Jean). 

“Your first job? Yikes, th-URK!”

I was yanked backwards by the collar, nearly being strangled in the process. The only reason I didn’t totally fall over from the surprise jerk was because another hand pressed into my back and steadied me. 

“You better plan to listen to your director better in future,” Levi’s voice snarled. He didn’t let go of my collar, and proceeded to drag me into the building (much to the amusement of pretty much everyone else around). 

“Let go!” Damn, his hold was always hard to wriggle out of. Still, half way down one corridor he did release me, shoving his hands in his pockets as he continued to walk like nothing was up. 

There were quite a few people all heading to the meeting room we were having the read-through in, but most of them were already deep in conversations as they moved around us. Levi made no such effort to talk, just stared ahead with his usual blank face. I walked beside him, glancing over every few moments trying to work out if I should say something or not. 

“How many girlfriends have you had?”

That… wasn’t what I was expecting. 

“W-what?” I stammered, nearly freezing completely at Levi’s question. 

He didn’t even look at me. “Girlfriends. Kirschtein said you’d had the same amount as him.”

Actually, I was totally ok with him not looking my way; it meant he didn’t see me turning red. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Are you going to answer the question or not, brat?”

Where the hell had this come from? I grimaced. “One…”

“You’ve only had one girlfriend?”

“Y-yeah! What’s wrong with that?”

“Who?”

“Just some girl back in high school.”

“Hm...”

I cast him a sidelong glance as we stepped into the meeting room. There was a large table in the centre that had name cards, and people were already taking their places – there were also seats around the edge of the room, where I suppose the less important people sat. 

“Why are you asking about that, anyway?” I asked, hoping my face was less red now. 

Levi moved over to a wall and leant against it, arms folded – I supposed that was where he was planning to remain throughout the meeting. I hovered in front of him, watching him carefully for an answer. At last, he looked back at me properly. His eyes quickly looked me up and down before he cocked an eyebrow. 

“I’m checking how much experience you have with romance.”

I frowned, hoping that would hide how much my heart had leapt there. “And why’s that?”

The corner of his lip twitched upwards into what seemed to be something like a smirk. 

In the end, I didn’t get my answer, seeing as a hand clamped down on my shoulder from behind with enough force to send jolts down my bones. 

“You’re Eren, right?” a blonde guy asked as I turned round. “I hear we’re co-stars. Reiner Braun.” 

He didn’t bother with a handshake, but the name quickly clicked into place in my head. This guy must have been playing the traitor: Vincent Thwaite. I didn’t decide whether he looked the part or not; he was threatening as hell with how ripped he was (poor Levi was like a skinny kid next to this guy, which was… hilarious, to say the least), but at the same time Reiner had the friendliest damn smile I’ve ever seen. 

“Everyone’s sitting down, so are you coming?” he asked, motioning to the table. 

“Sure,” I nodded, shooting Levi one last glance as I started walking. His smirk had dropped, and now he was just watching me. It was happening again: his eyes were boring into me. I’d never felt a gaze like this one of his; it sent shudders done my spine, left me a breathless mess. It was strange. And it only ended when Hanji approached him and drew his attention away. 

My seat was actually right beside Reiner’s, and he was more than happy to chat away as we settled and waited for everything to start. Marco was sitting opposite, next to the Kirschtein, but they both seemed to be totally enamoured with each other – I had to stop myself laughing at the sight. 

“Excuse me,” a small voice suddenly said. I quickly glanced round just as a pretty small blonde girl was sitting down in the free chair beside me. She had the prettiest smile that she graced me with, and I’m pretty sure the one I sent back was the ugliest one I could have possibly worn. Across the room, I swear I spotted Levi covering his mouth to laugh. 

“You’re Eren, right?” the girl said, taking a sip of water that had been offered to her from one of the crew members. “I’m playing Sally, so I hope we work well together.”

She smiled again. I could feel Reiner on my other side leaning closer (not that I blamed him, that smile just drew you in). Then it hit me. 

“Y-you’re Christa Lenz!”

She blinked, apparently taken aback by my outburst, but nodded and blushed. “Yep!”

Right, ok. So I was acting opposite one of the most popular and talented young actresses in the business. No pressure at all. To say I was star struck was the biggest understatement in the world. I ended up being pushed back in my seat by Reiner so he could greet Christa too, which gave me a moment to realise the true horror of this discovery. 

_I was going to have to kiss Christa Lenz._

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure any person with a sane mind would sell their soul for the chance to make out with Christa Lenz… but the fact that I had to do it for a film was sort of terrifying. I didn’t want to mess up. And I certainly didn’t want to do too well and be murdered by her avid fans. 

Thankfully, horseface Jean helped drag me out of my panicked mind by acting like a total dick again – though this time without an obvious cause. Both he and Marco had fallen into some sort of laughing fit, and had their heads pressed against the table. Both Reiner and Christa were looking over uncertainly too, so I decided to help everyone out and join all the main cast together in conversation. 

I did this very helpful thing by plucking a grape off the bowl that was being passed around and throwing it directly at Jean’s head. 

“What the hell’s up with you?”

Dot Pixis started the read-through pretty quickly after that.

 

When it ended, I was buzzing. Actually reading some of the script, joining in discussions about character development and costumes, listening to ideas for some of the big special effect moments, it just set me off. I was ready to go, excited and pumped, just waiting for the first shoot to kick off. As we all started leaving, my eyes were still glued to the script I’d been given. Or at least they were until I walked into the wall and Reiner had to guide me away whilst he and Christa pissed themselves laughing. Deciding now wasn’t the time to have my head stuck in the script, I hurried forward and threw my arm around Kirschtein’s shoulders, squeezing him. 

“You sure surprised me in there, Kirschtein,” I said. “I’m looking forward to this film even more now!”

As expected, he growled a “Get off!” and roughly shoved me away. The others giggled at the exchange. I was being honest though; I hadn’t worked with Jean like this before, and I really hadn’t expected him to be so good. Maybe the character just suited him, or maybe Marco just brought out a good report in their scene. Either way, the point still stood: Jean was impressive. 

And if anyone told him I said that, he’d never let me forget it.

I was about to turn and say something to Marco, when I heard a very small mutter. “You weren’t so bad, I guess.” I smirked when I heard it, which only made Jean scowl deeper. 

The five of us hung about in the studio foyer after that. It was sort of nice how quickly we’d gotten comfortable around each other. I’d like to think mine and Jean’s constant bickering helped lighten the mood, since even Christa (who I’d imagined to be super quiet) laughed along at our antics. Pretty shortly though, a tall figure approached us. 

“Christa, you ready?” the woman asked, peering down her nose at us lads like we were some sort of predators. 

“Oh, yeah!” Christa smiled, turning back to us. “This is Ymir, my bodyguard. We have plans now, so I’ll see you guys on set!”

Ymir wrapped her arm around Christa and, giving us all one last look, steered her out the building.

“I better head off too,” Reiner said with a yawn. “A couple of my mates work here, and I promised to meet them after the read-through. See you later.” He left with a wave, heading back into the studio. 

I turned to Jean and Marco with a smile. I was rather enjoying hanging out with them – mainly because Jean looked extremely grumpy whenever I chatted to Marco, and it was pure gold watching his face. I don’t know how these two had gotten in contact before today, but it was clear Jean was possessive over Marco for some reason.

“Are you heading home now, Eren?” Marco asked. 

I shrugged and glanced at my phone. “I don’t know if I want to just yet. My sister will just be getting back from work, and she needs to sleep.”

Marco seemed confused, especially when Jean started nodding in understanding. “Well, can’t you just be a little quiet?”

“Nah,” Jean answered for me. “His sister likes to baby him, she’ll not sleep if he just gets in from work.”

“She just likes hanging out with her brother, is all!” I snapped at Jean. Mikasa didn’t ‘baby’ me… she just liked mothering me… “I’d rather stay away and give her a bit more time to sleep. She works too hard.”

Just as I was contemplating to linger around Marco and Jean until I deemed it an appropriate time to head off for the bus (which was tempting, since Jean looked like he really wanted me to leave), a hand grabbed my shoulder. 

“Yes, you are heading back now,” Levi said very matter-of-factly. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, what?” He didn’t answer me, and simply started dragging me towards the studio exit. I felt like I was being pulled around quite often by him recently. I barely got a chance to wave goodbye to the others, before I was outside and being pushed into the passenger side of the company car we’d come in. 

Levi collapsed into the driver seat and set about typing away on his phone. 

“Um… Isn’t Hanji coming too?” I asked.

“No. She bumped into an old friend, so she left with him.”

“You did just hear me say I didn’t want to head home yet, right?”

“When did I say I was taking you home?” 

I frowned. “You just said we were heading back.”

“Not to yours.”

I felt the tension rise in my chest. Damn, I really couldn’t smile yet. 

“So… where are we going?” I asked, praying that I sounded as nonchalant as Levi always did. 

He paused for a moment, his fingers no longer tapping away at his phone. “There’s a film I want to see.”

“A film?” I said slowly. 

“Yes. A film.”

“So… you want to go to the movies with me?”

“No. I just don’t want to go to the movies alone.”

Now I really had to hold back a smile. It was only just reaching lunchtime – this morning hadn’t lasted as long as I’d thought it had – and I doubted there was much playing at the cinema right now: the city one was only small, and it rarely had anything showing in the weekdays, never mind at lunch. Somehow I couldn’t imagine Levi actually wanting to go to the cinema in the first place. 

“Are you trying to take me on a date?” I teased – the smile cracking out at least. 

Levi scowled and put his phone away, turning to me with a look of disgust. “Like hell I am, you cocky little shit.”

“You totally are!” I laughed. “You’re taking me on a date without even asking me first!”

“It is _not_ a date. I just don’t like going to the cinema by myself. I’ll call up someone else if you don’t want to go.” Levi’s eyebrow kept twitching, and I would even dare to say he may have had slightly red cheeks. 

“Oh yeah? What film is it you want to see?”

He took in a deep breath, like he was trying not to yell at me. “That… superhero film.”

“Which superhero film?”

“Batman.”

“There isn’t a new Batman film out.”

His scowl deepened, and without another word he flicked on the engine. I was actually pushed back into the chair a little with how fast he took off; I must have really made him mad. Still, no matter how deep his frown was, I couldn’t stop grinning like an idiot.

“Turn left at the end of the road,” I said. 

He glanced over at me. “Who the fuck made you in charge?”

“You wanted a date, so I’ll give you a date,” I shrugged. “So turn left at the end of the road.”

Levi looked torn; I figured he wasn’t keen on taking orders from me. 

He still turned left though. 

“It’s not a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: I'm currently doing one-shot fic requests on tumblr as a sort of thank you to my followers, but also to you guys as well, since you're supporting me so much on AO3! So if you wanted to request something on there, you can :) [Info is here](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com/post/88525264052/just-a-reminder-that-requests-for-one-shot-fics)!


	6. Balls of Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren has a great date solution... whether Levi likes it or not will have to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know about the chapter title, I just don't know...
> 
> So yes, here is chapter 6! Thank you guys so much for reading, hope you enjoy this one too! As always, you can find me [on tumblr](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com) here.

My hands were shaking, heart pounding, back pressed right up against a tree – the bark scratchy on my arms. Maybe I shouldn’t have rolled my sleeves up, but at this stage I was way too hot to even think about pushing them back down, all for the sake of a tiny bit more comfort. Fuck, I was wondering why I was keeping the damn shirt on at all. I pushed the back of my head into the tree – my body on fire as the adrenaline pulsed through it. 

“Stop panting, someone will hear,” Levi’s voice said into my ear. He reached a hand up, covering my mouth to muffle my heavy breath. 

Footsteps hurried past us, and Levi pressed his body against mine, eyebrows narrowed as he listened out to see if anyone else was approaching. 

“It’s clear, you ready to go?” he asked, leaning back from me only slightly. It took him a moment to realise that the reason I wasn’t replying was because his hand was still camped over my mouth, and so he let go. 

“Yes,” I eventually got out, my breath still not even yet. 

“You sure? I can’t have you keeling over in the middle of this.”

“I won’t keel over! I’m ready.”

A smirk worked its way onto Levi’s lips. 

“Good,” Stepping back from me, he swung the paintball gun up into a proper hold, and I swear his eyes were bright with excitement. “Let’s get these fuckers and end this.”

He barely waited to check if I was following before sprinting out from behind the tree and straight towards the enemy area of the paintball arena. Got to be honest, I was actually having to go all out to keep up with him. Levi was fucking fast.

As much as I originally thought paintballing was the world’s greatest idea for a date, as we pulled into the car park I’d realised I had no idea if Levi – who had a good few years on me (not that I pointed that out to him) – would actually find the physical and competitive nature of the it enjoyable. I was half expecting him to take one look at the sign and just drive away… and if he did do that, he’d probably just kick me out the car and leave me there. The reality was… unexpected. We pulled up, got out, and he did hesitate to stare at the sign blankly, but eventually gave a quiet ‘hm’ and headed in. I figured he was sort of indifferent about it, and only went along with it for my sake. 

Oh how wrong I was. 

He was pretty unresponsive to anything I said as we were kitted out with helmets and vests (though he did grumble about how such things were useless, and if you were crap enough to get hit, you deserved to feel the pain). He also remained silent as the worker briefly explained the rules and how to use the paintball gun... but after the worker left, he scoffed and complained about how he had to be lectured on such obvious things by “a spotty, snot-nosed kid” who “probably couldn’t even boil an egg properly”. 

And then we headed out into the arena… and it was like I’d unleashed a monster. 

There were lots of teams out – some small like ours, some with up to fifteen members – but the moment Levi stepped out he was just mowing them down one after the other. I barely moved for the first ten minutes of the massacre (one particularly large group had surrounded us), Levi didn’t give me a chance to shoot anyone, seeing as he was sending paintballs this way and that, sometimes without even looking and just firing over his shoulder. He claimed he’d never done this before, but I was having a hard time believing it. 

So yeah, after an hour, I was pretty confident Levi was actually enjoying this. 

“Eren!” he hissed. I was suddenly yanked by my collar into a small wooden shack… and it was only when I fell over something and landed painfully on the floor that I realised Levi had dragged me through a fake window. 

“Ow!” I complained as I sat up, watching him peering round the open door at something. 

“There’re a fuck ton of them,” he grumbled. I crawled over and peered round his legs to see that there was indeed seven members of the green team standing around. If this had been a capture the flag game, it would have been impossible for the two of us to tackle such a large group. 

Thankfully, it was just a pure and simple ‘slaughter as many people as you want’ game.

“Think we can get them from here?” I asked, rearranging my gun so I wasn’t lying on it.

“And get trapped in this crappy shack as they start honing in on us? Fuck no.”

“Maybe we should split up then?”

“Fine. You stay here, I’ll circle round and get them from the other side.”

“Why you?”

“Because you’ve got fucking monster feet that make you walk louder than a monkey having sex.”

I peered up at him. “Wow, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” He pulled back from the door and slipped out the back window of the shack. “Don’t start shooting until I’m in position.”

There was no point of getting to my feet, so I shuffled over to one of the windows that gave me a good view of the green team and sat beneath it. “How will I know when you’re in position?”

“Because I’ll have started shooting, dumbass.”

Without another word, Levi ran off, leaving me sitting there smiling at how into this he was. Not that I minded in the slightest, of course; it would have been a pretty dull date if he hadn’t liked it. Arranging myself so my gun was only just pointing out the window, I waited for the first shot to be fired from Levi’s side, willing my heart to shut the fuck up. 

_BANG._

And it started. 

The green team scattered in a panic as one of them was hit by a paintball seemingly from nowhere. I didn’t bothering trying to hide my smirk as I started firing on them too. Two down, five to go; they split up – two heading off in Levi’s direction and three coming my way. One aimed a gun right at my head so I ducked under the window again – cursing as the green paint splattered against the wall behind me: these guys were fucking good aim. 

My whole body was back to burning with excitement as I pressed myself into a corner of the shack and pointed my gun straight at the door. I could hear them. The footsteps pounding against the beaten down dirt as they came towards me. My finger shook as it lingered by the trigger. Just a little longer. Just a little more. 

Two bodies jumped round the door and were immediately pelted with blue paintballs straight to the chest. They groaned, staring down at the paint in disbelief as I inwardly screamed with delight that I’d gotten them.

Except… weren’t there three?

I heard something and turned to the window on the wall I was leaning on just in time to look down the barrel of a gun before it fired. 

“Shit!” I shouted as the green paintball crashed into my shoulder, my left arm trembling at the force. 

“Oi.”

The guy who shot me froze in fear at the cold voice that had spoken right behind him. I leant to the side to see who owned the gun that was pressed right up against the back of the guy’s head. 

Yeah, I shouldn’t have been surprised it was Levi. 

“That was my shitty brat you just shot,” he growled, pulling the trigger and splattering blue paint across the guy’s helmet. 

Levi forcefully pushed the guy away and leaned through the window to see the damage on my shoulder. I just smiled and shrugged it off. 

“Well, does this mean we’re done?” he asked, beckoning me to hop through the window and follow him out. 

“Well, I can’t continue, if that’s what you mean.” I had to laugh at the flash of thought that crossed Levi’s eyes – he looked like he was sorely tempted to just continue by himself. 

He didn’t have to decide for much longer though, seeing as he suddenly jumped as something smacked him right in the back. 

Yellow paint. 

“He wasn’t prepared, you bastard!” I shouted over Levi at the yellow culprit, who was now pissing himself with laughter. He wasn’t laughing for long, since I fired three rounds straight at him – covering the front of his helmet. 

“Dude, you’re out! You can’t shoot someone!” a voice called from behind me, shortly before I felt a strong hit right on the back of my leg. 

I don’t really feel like talking about the mayhem that broke out after that, and how Levi and I pretty much ended up being hunted as every other team in the goddamn game joined up to get us, but I will say that we ended up sitting back in his car absolutely covered from head to toe in a wonderful rainbow of colours, breath still heavy as we regained our composure. 

Levi pulled at the crusty orange paint that was sticking to his shirt. “It’s filthy…”

“I didn’t expect them to still come at us after we’d taken the vests and helmets off…” I muttered, feeling a little bad that it was pretty much my fault even our hair was caked in paint. 

“Where did they even get the hand held paintballs from?”

“I think they bribed the employees.”

“Bastards.”

I chuckled, sinking into the car seat and watching Levi out the corner of my eye. I was pretty sure he liked paintballing – he definitely grew very passionate about it whilst playing, that was for sure – but I was a little worried the mess of the aftermath would end up souring the whole thing. He was clearly torn between picking flakes of paint off his skin and hair, or leaving them in the hopes of keeping his car somewhat clean. His eye kept twitching; it was a habit I’d noticed a while back, but only now did I realise that’s what he did when he was struggling to make his mind up. His hands kept fidgeting as he jumped from decision to the other. 

His eyes caught mine.

Quickly dropping my gaze, I made a show of pulling my phone out and checking it for messages. I was sort of surprised to find that I actually had a couple waiting for me. 

_From: Armin  
Hey Eren, the terrible two have invited us over to theirs to celebrate you and Jean getting cast in HLH tonight! Mikasa and I are heading over there in a few hours, when will you be home?_

_From: Armin  
Hey Eren, I’m assuming you’re out right now, so we’ll just meet you at Sasha and Connie’s!_

_From: Mikasa  
Do you have an eta? Connie wants to get the booze out x_

Mikasa’s last text had only been sent fifteen minutes ago, so I guessed the party was only just getting started – plenty of time for me to get over there and still enjoy the best part of it. Still – I glanced over at Levi again, who was checking his own phone – I didn’t want to leave if I didn’t have too. 

I blushed and looked down; maybe I was just getting ahead of myself by thinking the date with Levi hadn’t ended yet. For all I knew, he was making plans to go head out with other people – maybe meet up with Hanji and her friend, or go visit Erwin, or someone else that I didn’t even know…

My stomach churned at the thought of him preferring time with them over me. 

Dropping his phone into one of the cup holders under the dashboard, Levi turned my way again. “Do you need to get back to your sister?” 

“Huh?”

“Do you need to get back now, is that what the texts were about?”

There was a flurry of hope in my chest, and I quickly shook my head. “N-no. Not at all.”

“Ok then.”

And just like that he started the car. 

Had to admit, I was a little relieved he drove straight back to his house – partly because I didn’t really feel like going anywhere looking like I’d just been tie-dyed, and partly because if Levi’s ‘film’ idea was anything to go by, he wasn’t too original with dates. I was nearly pissing myself by the time we’d gotten out of the elevator and into his apartment, since he was growing more and more agitated by the paint under his nails. 

“Shut up,” he growled. Just before I stepped out onto the carpet of the living room, he yanked me back by my belt and ordered me to take my shoes off before I took another step. “I’m going in the shower. Don’t touch anything, you’re clothes are disgusting.”

“So what, I have to just stand in one place until you’re done?” I pouted. 

“Yes. That’s a fantastic idea,” He waved off any protests before I could give them, and headed straight for the door to his bedroom. Pausing as he reached it, he turned round and stared back at me, completely expressionless. “Or you could just cut to the chase and join me in there?”

The whole world stopped for a moment as I stared back at him. His face gave nothing away. I didn’t want to accept if he was joking, and just embarrass myself, but I sure as hell didn’t want to refuse. Then again, I still wasn’t 100% sure where I was with Levi. I mean, he’d hardly said anything about the other week – the night or the morning after – but he had also taken me out on a date (no matter how much he stubbornly denied that that was what it was). I didn’t even know if I could call it all ‘mixed messages’, because I didn’t know what half of these messages meant!

“I imagine that’s the expression someone who just took a shit for the first time would wear,” Levi said turning and heading into the room and out of my sight, leaving me still standing there with my mouth hanging open and still without an answer. 

I soon heard the shower turn on, and figured I’d missed my chance if he’d been serious, so opted to distract myself from thinking too much about what I could be missing out on. I was going to use the kitchen sink to try and get the worst of the paint out my shirt before it stained, but figured Levi would probably get annoyed that I’d dirtied his sink up or something and decided against it. Instead, I turned my attention to poking around his apartment a little more – seeing as the last time I was here I was either too drunk to care, or too busy trying to remember what had happened the previous night. 

He had a lot of books, which I hadn’t really expected for some reason; all of them were confined to the huge bookshelf in a small side room I assumed was a study judging by the desk of papers (that were significantly less organised than the ones in his office at the company). The books ranged from novels to biographies – they seemed to be organised by genre. The largest collection, by far, were travel books; huge informative books on different countries and cultures, and they seemed to be the most read from how worn some of them looked. I couldn’t help but smile; Levi should talk to Armin more, if his library was anything to go by they’d get along a treat. 

One thing I did notice when I was looking around, was the extreme lack of personal photographs. The only pictures hanging on the wall were professional ones, clearly bought for decorative purposes; photos of Levi or friends and family seemed non-existent. 

“Done poking around?”

I let out a shameful squeak of fright as I turned to find Levi standing in the doorway, now clean of paint with wet hair and nothing but a towel round his waist…

_… towel… round his waist… nothing else…_

“Sorry!” I exclaimed, quickly jumping away from the desk I’d been trying to find photographs on. “I was just… having a look around.”

Levi cocked an eyebrow but eventually shrugged. “Do what you want. Shower’s free.”

“Right… yeah thanks.”

The shower offered a wonderful chance for me to make myself calm the fuck down, seeing as Levi’s very lose towel had done wonders on my stupid overactive hormones. The paint washed of pretty easily, but there were patches I had to seriously scrub at to remove it all – leaving areas of red scattered across my skin. My hair was another challenge, and I was pretty sure I’d be finding hidden bits of red or pink in it for days to come. By the time I got out, I found myself staring down at the exact same t-shirt and shorts that I’d worn that morning a few weeks ago. 

Tugging them on, I wandered back out into the living room to see Levi now had a pair of trackies on, and the towel was round his neck as he flicked through TV channels from the sofa. 

“You really like making me wear shorts, huh?” I asked as I wandered over to lean on the back of the sofa. 

He glanced around only barely. “Maybe I do.”

That was promising, I suppose?

“Are you going to be coming to all the filming at the studio?” I asked, deciding work was a safe enough topic to start with. 

“No, only the ones that I need to be there for.”

“Which ones are those?”

Levi flicked the TV off – twisting slightly on the sofa so he could look up at me easier. “Those that include stunts, or if there is a meeting on the same day…” He smirked. “Love scenes.”

I straightened up, frowning in an attempting to hide my blush. “Why do you have to be there for the love scenes?”

“Mainly for the pleasure of seeing you be fucking useless at it.”

“I’m not going to be useless.”

“Oh yeah? You’re going to be an utter pro when you have to make out with Christa Lenz?”

I averted my gaze. “Of course.”

“Keep telling yourself that. You’re the brat who admitted to only ever having dated one person. You’re way too inexperienced to be able to kiss on camera without shitting yourself.”

He was trying to wind me up on purpose… and I didn’t feel like playing along with him today. So, I leant further over the sofa, moving in close to his face and stared him right in the eye, deadpan. 

“Maybe you should help me get some experience then.”

He smirked. 

“I like your dedication.”

Grabbing me by the back of the neck, he pulled me down – my chest painfully pressing into the back of the sofa as Levi brought out lips together. It didn’t take much longer before his other hand was grabbing my shirt and physically hauling me over the sofa to land on top of him rather haphazardly. He didn’t seem to mind though; he was more interested in pushing his tongue between my lips. 

I sighed through my nose, letting the moment wash over me as Levi carded his hands through my hair and I rearranged my legs so they were between his. It was all I could do to keep myself from grinding my hips down against him – I just knew that if I did he’d make a comment about me being some hormonal brat (which I totally was, but I didn’t want pointing out). The rational part of my mind was nagging me about something, but the movements of Levi’s tongue were too memorising for me to think enough to remember what it was. 

As we broke apart, Levi wiped his lips with the back of his hand, staring up at me with those boring eyes once again. No matter how many times he looked at me like that, I couldn’t help the chill run down my spine. 

And then Rational Eren took the chance away from my agent’s lips to speak. “Levi... what are we doing?”

Levi raised an eyebrow. “Well I thought we were kissing and you were getting a hard-on.”

I glanced down… I hadn’t noticed that. “N-not that! I meant, what are _we_ doing? Like… what is this?”

He sighed, apparently realising what I was trying to say, and pushed me off him so he could sit up. “Well what do you want it to be?”

“I don’t really know…” I admitted.

“Do you want to call it dating? Boyfriends? Lovers? That sort of thing?”

“I… er…”

“Fuck buddies? If you still want to fuck, I mean.”

“What do you–”

“Or does this whole thing just scare you a bit too much? If so, there’s no reason we have to go on. I don’t know whether you were already on board with the whole ‘dating guys’ thing or not.”

I wasn’t exactly a stranger to the thought of dating other men – I always said when asked that I didn’t really mind either way, but that didn’t mean I’d ever met a guy I actually felt like dating. 

Not that I told this to Levi. “I wasn’t even aware you were the type to… um… want to date a guy,” I said. 

“Have you ever seen me date a girl?”

“Well, no, but–”

“Then don’t assume.”

“But I haven’t seen you date anyone at all.”

“Doesn’t matter: don’t assume.”

My phone in my pocket beeped loudly, and I quickly checked it to find yet another message from Mikasa, telling me to hurry up and get to the ‘party’ they were having, and that I had no excuse to be out right now. This time Levi was close enough to read it over my shoulder. 

“I’ll give you a lift.” Levi stood up and moved over to grab his keys without even waiting for a response. 

“I never said I was going!” I complained. 

“Yeah, but I have work to do anyway, so you can’t stay here.”

That stung. 

Noticing my silence, Levi looked back my way and sighed. He wandered over and brushed a hand through my hair before tilting my head up to look at him. “I’m not saying I want you out. I’m saying maybe you should think about what _you_ want before this gets any further.”

I reluctantly agreed, and changed back into my paint-ridden clothes before Levi dragged me out of his apartment and back down to the car. We were pretty silent as we got in, but as he started the car up, Levi peered across at me. 

“Don’t get grumpy with me. You’re not going to get blue balls after one failed make-out sessions.”

I got the feeling that was supposed to be a joke, so I forced a smile – which ended up coming out more natural than I expected. “You did take me on a date, what was I supposed to think was going to happen?”

“It was _not_ a date.”

The only conversation for the rest of the ride was me giving Levi directions to where I was going. As he pulled up outside Connie, Sasha and Jean’s flats, I lingered in the car for a moment to see if he was going to say – or do – anything else. 

His eye twitched. 

“Try not to take too long thinking it over, yeah?” was what he eventually said. 

I forced a smile and opened the door. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *disclaimer: I've never been paintballing, and know nothing about it, so this might be super inaccurate, yay!


	7. Want vs. Feel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren needs a kick up the backside before he can think things over properly... and that was one hell of a kick up the backside...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I rewrote this chapter like a billion times... it wasn't fun.  
> I've also decided Eren is really hard to fucking write. I just can't write him at all...  
> However, I hope you enjoy! I'm looking forward to what I've got planned for the next chapters, so I hope you will too ^^
> 
> You guys can find me [on tumblr here](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)!

“Wow…” Armin stood staring at me from the other side of the threshold. I could hear the ruckus of my friends inside the flat seeping out into the hallway – Connie and Sasha mainly, though I heard Mikasa’s chiming laughter appearing at odd intervals. Sweeping his eyes up and down me, Armin gave a sort of half-smile. It was painfully aware he was thinking a looked a state. “You don’t look as excited to be here as I expected?”

“I heard something about booze?” I muttered in reply as he stepped aside to let me in. Sure enough, when I headed into the living area, my eyes immediately spotted the lines of various bottles on the kitchen counter. I made a beeline for them – almost completely ignoring the slightly tipsy greetings from the others.

Thankfully, the others didn’t make an attempt to stop me from starting what was bound to be a lonely alcohol-filled night. It was only after I’d downed one shot of a very questionable green liquid (where the fuck did Sasha find these things?) and was about to pick up a cider that Mikasa appeared beside me. She stood quietly for a while, watching with her head slightly tilted as I tried to look very invested in reading one of the bottle labels. 

She tugged softly at a strand of hair. “Pink…?”

“Ah…” I lifted a hand to the strand in question and started trying to scrap away the crusted colour. I motioned at the rainbow splashed across my clothes. “It’s paint.”

“So you were painting?”

“Paintballing.”

I was preparing myself for a barrage of questions. ‘Who with?’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ ‘Did you come this way on a bus like that?’ But she didn’t give me the third degree like I expected. She simply frowned a tad. 

“Is there someone I need to beat up?”

I hadn’t realised I was looking _that_ obviously down-trodden. Though, if someone was going to pick up on my mood, it would be Mikasa. 

Shooting her a grateful smile, I leaned over and allowed our shoulders to nudge together. “Thanks, but it’s fine.”

“Of course it’s fine!”

Sasha had somehow made it over without me realising. My head rang a little from the volume of her screech – she was much drunker than I’d originally thought. 

She smacked my back with a loud laugh. “We have booze and good company. Everything’s fine!”

“Sasha…” Mikasa sighed, but Sasha didn’t even seem to hear it, and just hooked her arm through mine and squeezed me. 

“Want to borrow some of Jean’s clothes? He’s probably a better fit for you than that short-arse.” She motioned over her shoulder at Connie, who gave a small cry of protest that might have made me laugh if the phrase ‘short-arse’ didn’t immediately think of a particularly short-arse who’d pretty much kicked me out of his apartment because I was being so god-damn indecisive.

Glancing down at my colourful outfit, I shook my head to reject the offer. Seeing the paint all over me just fuelled the resentment I felt towards myself. Maybe if I built it up enough, I might get my head around how I actually felt about Levi. It was worth a shot right?

Speaking of shots…

And thus began said lonely alcohol-filled night. It also ended up as yet another night I was grateful for my low tolerance – seeing as the booze Connie and Sasha had brought was so cheap, there was barely any alcohol content in. It took an insane amount of shots and five bottles of ciders before I started to feel it (which only made me wonder just how much the two idiots must have drunk before I got there, seeing as they were already better damn drunk). 

It wasn’t until about an hour or so into the chatting, laughing and drinking that I felt something was off about the whole scene.

“Hey… this is a celebration party, right?” I asked – eyebrows narrowing.

“Yeah!” Sasha agreed. “For you and Jean making it big!”

Armin gasped, apparently reaching the same conclusion I had, and pulled a concerned face. He then threw a pillow at Connie and Sasha to make them pay closer attention to his question, since this whole time they’d been more interested in a thumb war. “Where _is_ Jean?”

“Jean?” Connie asked, not looking up. “He’s right…”

And the penny dropped. 

“Hey, Connie…”

“Yeah, Sasha?”

“I think we forgot to invite Jean to his party.”

“Yeah… I think we did.”

“Think he’ll be mad?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Get so drunk that he can’t be bothered to yell at us?”

“Hell yeah.”

Mikasa sighed, shaking her head in disappointment at the two, but there was a hint of a laugh haunting her lips. Armin, however, went into full lecture mode – obviously just feeling guilty over not noticing Jean’s absence sooner. I didn’t really mind either way; it felt strangely normal and comforting for this to have happened. Much more normal than how I might have spent my night.

The world was fuzzy and warm with the beer goggles on (not that I was drinking beer), so I sunk into the couch between Armin and Mikasa and grinned happily. 

“This was the better choice…” I mumbled into my bottle. 

“Than what?” Armin asked, twisting a little to face me directly – apparently my conversation sounded more promising than Connie and Sasha’s (who were in some sort of discussions about the feasibility of creating a real cat-dog). 

I groaned dramatically as I leant to the side so I could yank my phone from my back pocket. Once it was in my hand, I scrolled through my contacts and pulled up Levi’s information, shoving the phone into Armin’s face to show him. “Than _him_.”

“He was a choice?” came Mikasa’s disapproving grumble after she spotted the contact from over my shoulder. However, my mind was too fuzzy to care, so I just nodded and allowed myself to stare at the screen for a second longer before haphazardly dropping it into my lap. 

“But I don’t care anymore,” I announced. In the back of my mind I knew that I should shut up. Typically, I’m a happy drunk. But if there’s something weighing on my mind, then I tend to try and loudly state that it’s _totally not_ bothering me at all – meaning that whist I wanted to say ‘Levi’s so much nicer and thoughtful than I thought, and he always puts me first. And though I love you guys, I wish I was hanging out with him right now’… it actually came out as this:

“He’s nothing but a grumpy, grouchy bastard who kicks me around. It’s not like he’s even fun to hang out with! There’s nothing good about that shorty!”

Which would not have really mattered if the only ones who heard that were my friends. However, life hates me, and there was one other person who overheard me say that sentence…

“Hm? Eren? Is your phone on?”

I felt the world ending before I’d even looked down into my lap to see what Armin was talking about. Sure enough, my phone’s screen stared up at me – on, and apparently a good minute into a voice call with… Levi…

My mind shattered back into sobriety as my shaking hands lifted the phone up and to my ear. I could pretty much already guess the result if Levi had actually heard me say that – and I was almost 99% certain that it would include me dead in a ditch somewhere. 

“Levi?” I asked into the phone cautiously. 

He tutted. “Thanks for being so quick.”

_Beep._

The phone dropped out of my hands once the dial tone began. 

Mikasa placed a hand on my back, but somehow I felt numb… and I didn’t think it was the alcohol. “Eren? What was–?”

“I fucked up…” I dropped my head into my hands, hoping the others would just leave to mope over how fucking stupid I was. “First I fucked up the date–”

“Date?!” 

“–and now I’m fucking up the party!”

“Wait, Eren! What’s this about a date?”

I stood up, hitting aside Mikasa’s hands as she tried to grab my arm. “I’m going home.”

“Eren!” Mikasa shouted, jumping up and forcibly grabbing my shoulders. She opened her mouth to say something else, but at that point we were all silenced by the sound of the front door opening and voices coming in – Kirschtein I assumed. 

“Jean’s back!” Sasha screeched – her voice horrible slurred, and her limbs hardly working as she scrambled up off the floor and hurried out into the hall. “Jean, baby! Congrats on being a movie star!”

Connie leapt up to follow Sasha out. Mikasa and I remained motionless – I avoided her eyes and waited for the ruckus in the hall to disperse so I could make my exit as quickly and easily as possible. Sadly, it didn’t seem like that was going to happen, since a second later, Connie’s scream filled the apartment. 

“Burglar!”

The utter ridiculousness of the idiot duo’s screams were enough to momentarily break whatever strange tension had arisen between Mikasa and me. We both broke down in laughter – Armin too, though he quickly jumped to his feet when he deduced that Jean had brought a guest with him, and headed out to try and save the horse and his friend. 

Mikasa’s smile from the laughing softened and she crouched a little to try and force me to look her in the eye. “Eren, I don’t know what’s going on, but don’t say that you’ve fucked things up. Whatever it is, you can sort it, so don’t get upset, ok?”

“But… Levi’s going to think I hate him... He’s going to think that was my decision.”

Her expression twitched. Snapping her head to the side, she swung a leg out to kick an empty vodka bottle off the coffee table – resulting in a magnificent smash to the ground. I froze to the spot, too terrified to move after the outburst (even though Connie and Sasha, who’d apparently just re-entered the room, cheered loudly at the sight). 

Facing me once again with a (notably forced) smile, she nodded. “Whatever’s happened, you can fix it by talking to...” She winced. “ _Him_.”

I kept my eyes on my feet, but did feel better. No doubt I’d be embarrassed as hell about this tomorrow… 

“Mikasa? Do you want to take Eren home?” Armin asked, appearing by our sides. “I’ll do some tidying up here. Jean’s got company, and I think he’ll be irritated if we stay much longer.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks, Armin.”

Jean and whoever he was with had already hidden away in his room when Mikasa and I headed out – I would have felt bad for leaving Armin with the clean-up, but even if I wasn’t freaking out over how to deal with the Levi situation, there was no way in hell I was going to deal with Connie and Sasha in that state. So, I was more than happy for Mikasa to steer me out the building and down the road to where she’d parked her car. She didn’t speak much during the drive home, though her eyebrows were furrowed like she was deep in thought, or maybe having an inner battle with herself over something.

Probably how she should deal with the Levi situation. 

Oh my dear sister… you don’t even know anything yet.

We were still both pretty silent as we reached our place – I just headed straight upstairs, phone in hand to try and figure out what to do. I figured the best thing to do first was have a shower – partly because I needed to try and get the paint out my hair again, but mainly because showers were like machines that made you think clearer. I dare you to try and think of one shower you’ve ever had where you haven’t (without realising) ended up thinking about some deep shit for at least a moment. 

And to be fair, the moment I’d dumped my paint ridden clothes in the laundry basket and hopped under the steaming water, I was able to sort through my thoughts a little easier. I couldn’t call him up to apologise or explain without having an actual answer to give him regarding ‘us’, so I supposed that was my first stop on the ‘sort-Eren’s-head-out’ train.

At the end of the day, he’d wanted me to figure out what I wanted, but honestly? I was too busy trying to figure out what it was _he_ wanted: there was no way I was going to let myself get my hopes up about actually, possibly, maybe being serious with him, just to find out that he only saw me as a brat he had to train in the art of romance for my acting. 

I frowned. ‘Get my hopes up?’ If I was thinking those words, didn’t that mean I already sort of knew what I wanted? Damn, why was this so fucking difficult? 

Oh. Probably because the two subjects in this relationship are a stupid, impulsive brat, and a cold, cranky geezer. 

I mean, I knew I was… fascinated by him: even before _that_ night, I was always looking at Levi. First it had been with admiration, I guess. He was the sort of person I wanted to be, I suppose… only, with a slightly shittier personality. 

I chuckled to myself. His personality wasn’t that bad. He just didn’t seem to know how to express himself properly. But that only made me want to know more. I was always watching him. Always waiting to spot _something_ that would give me an insight into the way he thought. 

Is that what you’d call ‘liking someone’? I’m not sure… 

But, if I had to say one thing, it would be that the feelings I had towards Levi were unlike anything I’d experienced before. 

He… had to think of me at least a little fondly… right? He was strong enough to have forced me away if he had _really_ not wanted to sleep with me. He’d said he’d enjoyed that night – I was not only a good fuck (which was praise I’d take to my grave), but I was good company too. He was never opposed to spending time with me, and though he complained, he never seemed _that_ bothered to be stuck with me outside of his working hours. He had tried to take me on a date – no matter how much he refused to call it that. And… I’m almost certain that he’d sounded disappointed in that one line on the phone.

So… even if it wasn’t in a romantic sense, Levi had to like me a little. 

It was that thought that kept me focused as I hurried back to my room with just a pair of boxers on. And it was that thought that I desperately clung to as I stood up and scrolled back through my phone’s contact list and pressed the ‘call’ button.

“What is it now?” came Levi’s soft voice after only two rings.

My breath caught slightly at his voice. He’d answered. That was a positive sign, right? “I didn’t mean what I said.”

“Oh?”

“It was a pocket dial, and I was just annoyed because… you’d kicked me out and it bothered me. So I was venting.”

He sighed. “Right.”

I frowned. He didn’t sound like he believed me. “But I’ve thought about it. And I’m not annoyed or venting anymore… So I want to talk to you.”

“Eren, I’m not in the mood for–”

“I’m sorry for saying what I did! But you wanted me to hurry up with my decision, so please just hear me out!”

“If you’re just worried that I’m not going to do my job because of this, then you need to get a fucking–”

“I’m telling to listen to me! Please!” 

He sighed again. This time louder and more notably irritated than the first. I could hear him shuffling around, grumbling. It was only when I glanced over at the clock and saw it was nearly midnight that I realised he might be in bed. Crap, if I’d just disturbed him whilst he was trying to sleep, then he was definitely going to be even crankier. He didn’t say anything else though, so I took that as permission to continue. 

“I don’t really know how I feel… but I know what I want. Is that sufficient enough for you?”

There was a pause as Levi processed what I’d said. “It’s enough to allow you a bit of time now, I guess. Go on.”

That was good enough for now. I slid down onto my bedroom floor, leaning against the side of my bed and took my time speaking, to make sure I didn’t say the wrong thing. “I don’t want this to end.”

“Have you even decided what you see ‘this’ as?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I surprised myself at how certain I sounded. “Because whether it’s talking to you, or getting off with you, I’m happy. Happy enough that I know that I want ‘this’ to continue.” I paused, but he still didn’t say anything; I couldn’t decide whether that was a good sign or not, so in order to not let myself think about it, I kept going. “I want to be around you as much as I can. I like being near you, and feel… almost smug when you go out of your way to give me attention. Even before… all ‘this’ started, I wanted to spend time with you. And now that we… you know…” Oh god, this was embarrassing. I could feel my cheeks burning. “I just want to be closer to you in every way.”

He was still silent. 

I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. “I don’t know if this is ‘love’, or even just ‘like’… I’m not experienced enough to be able to tell yet. So, no, I don’t know how I feel about you. But… I want to be with you. In any way you’ll let me.”

And there it was: my thoughts spread out and presented, and I suddenly felt like I’d basically offered myself up like a pig on a plate with an apple in my mouth – waiting to see if I was a sophisticated decoration, a fantastic main dish, or just a gross dead pig put out in bad taste.

…Yeah… that was a terrible analogy. In future, I’m not going to compare myself to pork when in the middle of this sort of thing. 

“Persistent brat…” Levi groaned. “What am I going to do with you?”

_Hopefully not cook me and put me on a plate with an apple in my mouth._

“This is the problem with brats: you don’t know shit.”

“Sorry…” I found myself saying. 

“So, what? You want to just continue what’s going on, without calling it anything, until you figure out your kiddy feelings?”

I felt myself curling up into a ball. “Yes, please?”

“Fine.”

“Eh?” I thought I’d misheard for a moment; I mean, his voice was so cold and sharp, and his words even more so… yet he’d agreed?

“I said fine. I’ll play along until you get your head sorted out. But if this just ends up with you discovering yourself nothing more than a horny brat, you better be prepared for a good punch.”

“Y-yes…”

“Good. Now get your sorry-ass to sleep. It’s too fucking late to be dealing with this.”

“Yes.”

“And Eren?”

“Yes?”

“Night.”

My chest tightened as his voice suddenly turned so soft it could have lulled me to sleep. Fighting back the smile (for fear it would show too much in my voice), I huffed quietly. “Goodnight, Levi.”

This time when the dial tone sounded, it didn’t sting so much. 

I plugged my phone in to charge and clambered into bed – more because Levi had told me to then because I was actually tired. I sunk into the pillow, trying to figure out what Levi was planning to do from here out. In the end, I just started smiling like an idiot. 

Levi had sounded pretty relieved…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am unable to write Mikasa as anything but 'perfect, caring, loving sister and friend, who will murder you if you hurt her boys'... but somehow I'm ok with that.


	8. Sinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi should stop speaking with blank faces and hidden connotations, because Eren's not that good at working it all out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh, I wrote this chapter and then discovered through the check that I'd written it all in third person.   
> Well done me.  
> But yeah, it's fixed now so yay!
> 
> The next chapters should be fun - it's the location shooting so you know what that means~ ~~if you've read POH, but look forward to it if you haven't!~~  
>  Please enjoy, and thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> [My tumblr](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)

By the time I got back from work, I was seriously pissed. I mean, the fact my stomach sounding like a freaking member of the Jurassic Park cast (and I don’t mean the humans), probably wasn’t helping the matter. And yeah, when I stormed into the kitchen only to discover not a scrap of food around (Mikasa and I had been working pretty much non-stop recently), my mood wasn’t exactly calmed. Slamming the cupboard door shut, I gave in a grabbed the only thing I could find; which happened to be a half-finished packet of Pom Bears I’d started yesterday morning… 

Well, either way, I took the greatest joy in biting the heads of each and every one of those bastard bear shaped potato things. 

“Eren?”

Mikasa appeared in the kitchen doorway – hair a rather impressive mess, and smudges of dirt and make-up still on her face from work. It took me a minute to remember her schedule, but I quickly realised she must have only just got in recently. She must have been seriously tired if she hadn’t had the energy to try and grab a quick shower before bed. 

“Sorry…” I muttered. I probably should have give a more sincere apology, but with the mood I was in, there was no way that was going to happen. I did feel guilty enough to hold back unleashing the tide of frustrations on her immediately, though. 

“‘S fine,” she shrugged, wandering over and slumping into one of the kitchen chairs. Her face screwed up a little as she tried to make her eyes focus on me – yep, definitely shattered. “Who are the bears symbolic of today?”

Apparently I made a habit of brutally beheading pom bears – which I’d gone back to doing without even realising. 

“Horseface,” I grumbled through a mouthful of crushed bears.

“Jean?” Mikasa beckoned me over, only to liberate one of the bears from my packet, and chomp down on it herself. 

“He’s been a total ass at work for like, the past week or something! I mean, it was all fine and dandy when he was zoning out during training and getting sucker-punched by Marco,” I paused to replay that memory over in my head again. It definitely cheered me up for a moment… “But at least he was sort of doing the work during actual filming! Do you know how many takes it took us to get him to even _say_ his first line? _Seven_.”

Miaksa frowned. “That’s not like him.”

“I know _that_. Arsehole’s more professional than fucking Levi when he gets going,” I dropped into the chair beside Mikasa, and bit off a poor, defenceless pom bear’s legs. “But he needs to get his act together before we head off for the location shooting tomorrow, or he’s dead.”

“Don’t get too angry at him.” Mikasa’s voice was starting to grow a little quiet, and her head dropped onto my shoulder. 

“I’m more worried as to what’s going to happen to him when Levi…”

I don’t know why I trailed off… Maybe I just gave up when I noticed that Mikasa was most definitely drifting off into a much needed sleep. Or, it was because of the name I’d just said. Yeah… probably the second one… but I didn’t really want to admit it. 

You know, as stupid as it sounds, sometimes I forget that Levi works with actors other than me – that he had some of the biggest names in the business under his wings, and I was one of the less important ones. But it wasn’t until he vanished off abroad with one of them for a whole week that it really hit me. Right after I apologised for the… phone incident too! I mean, I wasn’t expecting some happy reunion the very next day where we could pick up where we left off on the day of the date, with the kissing and the touching and the being on Levi’s sofa… But I was hoping for the chance to see him, at least! Instead of calling the next morning only to hear:

_“What now? I’m about to board a plane to Africa, you stupid brat.”_

Drifting back to the present, I tossed the empty Pom Bear packet onto the table behind and slowly started to remove Mikasa from my shoulder. It was about half-way through lifting her into my arms that I realised just how much muscle she had than me… Discovering that isn’t the best self-confidence boost for a guy, let me tell you. But, I suppose that’s expected of stunt doubles. Either way, I managed to (somewhat) successfully carry her upstairs and put her back into bed. She was completely out for the count.

I knew it was getting late, and that I had to be up at a ridiculous time tomorrow morning for work, but I still ended up draped across the sofa flicking through channels. I’d regret not getting a decent night’s sleep, but I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like sleeping.

It was about 9 when my phone started vibrating against the sofa cushions. 

The moment I caught sight of the caller ID, my heart jumped. The phone suddenly felt very heavy as I pressed ‘answer’ and lifted it to my ear. I held it a millimetre away from my skin – like I was expecting it to give me the world’s biggest electric shock or something. 

“Hello?” Thank god my voice came out steady. 

“You’re home, right?” Honestly, Levi’s voice was goddamn miraculous to hear after a whole week of pretty much no interaction (Levi was very clear on his stance of ‘unnecessarily paying for extortionate international calls and texts’). 

“Yeah,” I said, nodding furiously even though he couldn’t see me. “Did you just get back?”

Levi sighed loudly. I could hear him moving around, opening and shutting doors and picking up things. “Yeah, damn flight was delayed. We ended up sitting in fucking France for two hours because of the weather, or some shit.”

I’m going to pretend I wasn’t totally beaming at the thought that the first thing Levi did when he got home was call me.

“Anyway, you are packed for tomorrow, right?”

And… the smile dropped. Of course he was only calling to check the plans for tomorrow – that’s what agents do. “Yes.”

“Good. Then I’m just going to come get you now.”

_Huh?_

“Excuse me?” I asked, turning the TV in case I hadn’t heard him properly. 

“You deaf, brat? I’m coming to pick you up now.”

Spinning round, I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Yep, it was definitely only just after 9pm, I wasn’t going crazy. “B-but we don’t need to leave until–”

“4am, I’m well aware,” Levi sighed. “But you and Kirschtein live in total fucking opposite directions to my place, and I’ve just had to suffer through a fourteen hour flight, and don’t feel like waking up even earlier than I have to just to drive around the city picking up stupid brats. You may as well stay at mine tonight, and seeing as there’s only eight fucking hours till I have to drag your sorry-ass around for work, I don’t really care about your opinion on the matter. Got it?”

I couldn’t respond. 

“Good. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

The dial tone was the only one to witness my following freak-out. 

I wasted five minutes of that precious time before Levi’s arrival just staring at my phone in disbelief. Once I’d gotten my act together, the next ten were used for a panicked emergency shower (no way in hell was I going to clean-freak Levi’s without scrubbing every crevice – he’d probably smell the day’s work on me and leave me to sleep on the porch or something), and shove an extra night’s worth of clothes into my bag. My stomach wasn’t really helping me calm down by growling angrily – I’d given the fucking dinosaur in me half a packet full of bear crisps, what more did it want? 

It felt like no time at all before there was a knock on the door. I nearly tripped over my own feet as I stood, grabbed my bag, and simultaneously stepped into my shoes. Tugging the door open, I found myself face-to-face with Levi. 

“Ready?” he asked.

I could only nod. 

***

Levi didn’t say much the whole drive to his. I didn’t either; but mainly because I was slowly coming to the horrifying realisation that this was actually the first time we’d seen or even talked to one another since the whole hot-make-out-turned-awkward-argument-turned-stupid-accidental-dial-turned-awkward-apology-and-sort-of-confession. And, to be fair, I wasn’t sure I _wanted_ to risk talking to him with those monstrous bags under his eyes. 

He looked _tired_. 

Thankfully, he seemed to relax a bit when we got to his apartment. I left my bag by the door (too nervous to presume to put it in his bedroom), and he headed straight into the kitchen to make two coffees and started to make dinner when he checked how hungry I was. 

Well… he _said_ he was making us dinner… but I don’t know if I’d call Pot Noodle ‘dinner’. 

“I would have cooked if you were too tired…” I pointed out when he put the Pot Noodle on the table in front of me and sat down. 

He went about eating without even looking at me. “Like I’d trust a brat like you to feed me,” I muttered that I was a good cook under my breath as I started to dig into my ‘dinner’, but I don’t think he heard me. “Besides, there’s nothing but ready meals in my kitchen.”

“Oh, because you’ve been working away?”

“No. Because I don’t cook.”

I paused. “You don’t cook… _at all_?”

He sighed and stopped eating, looking over at me with narrowed eyes. “How about you come over again, kid, and I’ll cook you something. Then you’ll understand that I don’t cook. Or, at least you’ll understand in the few moments before you’re sent to the emergency room.”

I shut up, fearing the man who was dangerous enough, without black circles under his eyes to add to his anger. Still, I couldn’t help sniggering into my dinner as I ate. He noticed, but just muttered something inaudible under his breath. 

“So, what do I have to do to earn another fancy meal out?” I asked a little later when we’d both finished. Swinging back in my chair, I cocked my head at Levi as he watched me blankly.

“Win an Oscar.”

“You have very high expectations…” I pouted. 

The two of us fell silent for a moment, but it wasn’t uncomfortable like I expected it to be. Actually it was sort of… nice? With my knees against the table, I kept swinging back on the chair legs, barely noticing the smile on my face as I watched Levi stand and start clearing away our rubbish. When he came back he leant his hip against the table, watching me as I watched him. 

“Alright,” I said slowly. “What do I need to do to earn a cheap meal out?”

“Be in the top ten attractive men of 2014.”

I frowned. “Ok, now I’m just thinking you have high standards.”

“Luckily you don’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He smirked. 

Levi leant forward, reaching out and touching my jaw – his fingers still warm from where he’d been holding his coffee mug. I kept my eyes locked on his; too scared and too hopeful to look anywhere else. His eyes were boring into me again, sending chills up my spine…

… and not necessarily in a bad way. 

As his fingers trailed along my jaw to hold my chin, his expression somewhat softened, and he raised an eyebrow. “You’re acting like nothing happened.”

I could have laughed. “No,” I began, though my voice was quieter than I would have liked. “ _You’re_ acting like nothing happened.”

“I invited you over, didn’t I?”

“So you can sleep longer tomorrow.”

The quietest chuckle I’ve ever heard came from his throat. “Mhm…” Dropping his hand, he stepped back and rubbed his neck. “Well then, better get ready for bed. Seeing as we want to sleep as long as possible before tomorrow.” He immediately started to leave towards his bedroom, not even pausing to look back my way as I stood and awkwardly followed him – still unsure of what to do.

I may have told him what was going through my head, but he was giving me no hints as to what was happening in his. Maybe that wouldn’t have mattered if he was Christa or Armin – someone whose thoughts and feelings were written across their face for the world to see – but this was _Levi_. He probably wore the same blank expression when he was sleeping. Sure, there was times when he showed a little emotion – a smile, or a chuckle – but I couldn’t even guess as to what they meant. 

Though… if I thought about it… maybe I didn’t need to know exactly what ever chocked eyebrow and smirk translated as. Maybe I just needed to realise that he was showing them to me… I’d never seen those faces on set, or when we were at the office with everyone… They only ever cropped onto his features when it was just me and him. Did that mean I was special in some way? That he felt comfortable enough around me to drop his blank mask every now and then? That he relaxed enough around me to not even noticed he was showing these snippets? That he liked me enough that he couldn’t keep his face blank even if he tried?

My feet stopped moving when he went into his bedroom. I stood outside – staring into the dark room and listening to my heart rate pick up over stupid, hopeful thoughts. 

“Oi, brat,” Levi reappeared in the doorway, crossing his arms and looking at me expectantly. “What are you just standing around for?”

“Where am I sleeping?” It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask, but I figured his answer to it might give me a decent enough guess as to his current feelings (or at least opinions) about me. 

He watched me for a moment; he’d clearly picked up on the hidden connotations in the question. His eyes twitched. “Do whatever you want,” He dropped his gaze, and for a second I was worried he’d worked out my thoughts and was pissed off. But then he glanced back at me. “But you’re not going to sleep as well on the sofa.”

It was my turn to drop my gaze. I stared at the floor, feeling my cheeks heat up as he headed back into his room and started shuffling about. I turned and headed back to get my bag so I could get changed. I could hear the shower turn on in his en-suite, so I took the chance to go get ready in the other bathroom. 

It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but it was the best thing Levi would probably give me. It’s not like this was a two bedroom apartment – there was only one bedroom, and one bed, and that was Levi’s. He’d basically said that I can share the bed… but that didn’t stop me from feeling uneasy as I headed back into the bedroom once ready and saw the empty bed waiting… looming almost. 

The shower shut off, so I shuffled under the covers, sitting and trying to steady my heart as I listened to the noises from the bathroom. Levi seemed unfazed – or at least, the sounds of him getting ready were slow and calm – and when he opened the door to step out, he looked at me sitting there without even blinking. He didn’t come over straight away; he headed back into the house to turn off lights and check the doors were locked, and even cleaned something away in the kitchen for a minute. It was… stressful… sitting there with my heart practising to compete in the fucking Olympics, whilst he was just bustling around. 

And then he came back, shutting the door and turning off the bedroom light. I blinked; my eyes weren’t adjusting to the darkness fast enough, and I was totally blind as his footsteps padded closer to the bed. My breath came out shaky and loud as my heart raced out of control and the mattress dipped under Levi’s weight. 

A hand touched my cheek. 

Another shaky breath. 

I don’t think I’d ever get used to how soft Levi’s lips were. It just didn’t seem to suit such a grouchy old man; but they were somehow completely tender as they pressed against mine. His hands held me tight, pulling me closer so I couldn’t move back… not that I wanted to. As his tongue traced along my lips and parted them, a gasp escaped my mouth, and my hands gripped his sides as he started to push me down against the mattress. 

We broke apart for a second as Levi hovered over me – my eyes had adjusted now, and his form above me was really all I wanted to see. He brushed a hand through my fringe, sighing softly as he held my gaze. 

“Thank god it didn’t matter…”

My mind was a little hazy – the closeness of Levi’s lips and the memory of how they felt forcing most other thoughts to the back of my head. “What?”

“Never mind.” 

He leant down again, pulling my shirt down just enough for him to kiss along my shoulder blades. They were all soft, chaste pecks that didn’t do anything but make me want more. I turned my head, squeezing my eyes shut and offering more of my neck to him. He let out a breathy chuckle, and kissed my neck just as softly as my shoulders. It wasn’t enough. 

“Levi…”

“When you have a few days off…” Another fleeting kiss. “Then I’ll kiss hard enough to leave a mark.”

I could have whimpered at the thought. 

His hands turned my head, and his lips moved to meet with mine again. I was sinking; sinking further and further into daze where nothing existed but Levi. My hands grabbed at him, my mouth became desperate as I tried to push him further, move this faster, but just as I thought he was beginning to crack, he pulled back and wiped the wetness from my lips. 

“Sleep.”

“What?” 

“We have to go to sleep now,” Levi voice sounded strange – tight. He moved off me and crawled over to the bedside table to set his alarm. “We have to be up in five hours.”

“But–”

I turned over to face him just as he settled down – his back to me. “We have to be professional, and you have a long day tomorrow.”

I felt like a toddler pouting as I nuzzled into the pillow downtrodden, but I was going to let myself have this little sulk – he shouldn’t have let me get my hopes up like that if he was just going to switch off just like this. Then again… he had a point. I was already pretty tired, and just as I was letting my eyes drift shut, I heard him again. 

“No use doing it on a day we can’t fully appreciate it.”

I smiled as I fell asleep. 

Part way through the night, I think I woke up as I floated out of a dream. Levi had moved; his leg hooked over my waist, and a hand cradling my head to his chest. I didn’t have much time to process how at ease he looked asleep before I was sinking into the darkness again. But… I can’t be sure that that wasn’t a dream too.


	9. Cars, Sets, and Noisy Neighbours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of cars, a lot of sets, and a pair of horrifically noisy neighbours mean Eren's finding the distance between him and Levi a little difficult...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I am so looking forward to writing the next chapter~~
> 
> Update time!! Updates may be a tad sparse atm, because 3rd year is bloody _insane_. No one warned me that I'd actually have to _work_ at uni...   
>  Anyways, hope you guys enjoy! I promise the wait until Eren finally remembers a good fuck is almost over ;)
> 
> [My Tumblr!](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)

Levi was _not_ a morning person. 

However, he was at least functional. Which is more than I could say about myself. 

I’d apparently completely slept through the alarm, as it was Levi who had to wake me up in the end. And let’s just say he wasn’t too happy when I didn’t immediately stir at his calls. 

Remember the Eren burrito? Well this time, the bath he dunked me in wasn’t empty. 

I was too tired to even be angry (and also was slightly happier knowing that he’d have to deal with the sodden duvet I left in the bathtub), and just got ready on auto-pilot. When I was dried and dressed (and still half-asleep, despite the rude awakening), I shuffled into the living room to see Levi downing a cup of coffee and holding one out for me as I approached. I gave a grumble that was supposed to be ‘thank you’, and took the warm cup in my hands happily before sipping it. Levi stood still, typing a messaging on his phone with tired, squinted eyes. I watched him in my dreary state and slowly realised that a month or so ago I would have looked at those eyes and been terrified that he was furious. Now? I knew there wasn’t a speck of irritation in his features. His eyebrows were narrowed – but that was in concentration; he didn’t frown as deeply when angry, just glared. He was squinting, but also blinking a lot to try and keep his eyes awake and focused. 

I smiled, hiding it behind the cup as I took another sip; I wasn’t necessarily seeing more sides to Levi than others, but I was getting a better insight as to what they meant. And that made me feel sort of really smug. 

“Think Kirschtein will be up when we get there?” Levi sighed, pushing his phone into his back pocket. 

I gave another grumble that was supposed to be ‘probably not’, which earned a sigh off Levi as he took another drink. The more I stared at him, the more I decided I wanted him to actually face me. I didn’t like watching him from behind like this. So, I leant forward, hands still wrapped tight around my cup, and rested my head on his shoulder. 

He moved only slightly – maybe turning his head a little to see what I was doing – but didn’t say anything. I shut my eyes; revelling in his warmth, and the smell of his shirt. I used to think his clothes always smelt a little too much of washing powder, but now I was starting to notice the fainter smells of _Levi_ hidden underneath him hidden underneath it. I much preferred those smells. The little secret smells that no one else would notice, because no one else could get this close to him. 

… Perhaps my sleepy state was making me delirious… I didn’t think I’d ever stand and think about someone’s smell so much…

“If you’re done sniffing like a dog…” I flinched at Levi’s voice. Had I really been sniffing that loudly? “We better go drag Kirschtein out of bed.”

I was pretty damn happy to just sink into the passenger seat of Levi’s car – wrapping my arms around myself and settling down for what I hoped would be some extra time to nap. I didn’t _think_ I actually dozed off, but when I next opened my eyes we were pulling up outside Jean’s house, and I suddenly felt a little guilty that I was the one catching up on sleep whilst Levi dove me around. 

“You’re getting him,” Levi told me, crossing his arms across his chest and yawning widely. 

“Do you really think Jean’s going to listen to me?” I asked, my lips curling upwards. 

Levi’s face tightened, before he let out a loud sigh and moved to leave the car. “You’re useless,” As he came round to my side, he hesitated and glanced back my way, mouthing something. I rolled the window down so he could speak normally. “Get in the back seat. It’s easier to sleep there.”

He spun back around and headed into Jean’s building, leaving me to smile to myself. Doing as he said, I dragged myself out of the car, just to fall into the back seat. He was right: here I could slump further into the seat.

I still made an effort to stay awake while I waited for Levi to return. My mind drifted back to last night: the disappointment of the lack of action still ripe. With a sigh, I sunk further into the seat, letting my head drop against the car window. It wasn’t like I didn’t understand where Levi had been coming from when he’d stopped us in our tracks, but I felt like he forgot that I still remembered nothing about the first and only time we’ve actually gotten further. Didn’t he feel the _slightest_ bit sorry for me? 

“Too drunk to remember the ‘good fuck’…” I muttered sourly under my breath. I shuffled and pulled my phone out my pocket, going straight onto the calendar and scrolling through looking at my upcoming schedule. 

My grumblings were cut short as the whole car suddenly shook with the force that someone opened the back door with. 

“Get the fuck in.”

I slid across the back seat to the other side, just in time to watch Jean’s sorry-ass being thrown in where I’d been sitting a second ago – he seemed dead to the world, and I’m pretty sure I recognised the t-shirt and joggers he was in as his sleeping clothes… He just let Levi throw his bag on top of him. The car shook even more violently when Levi slammed the door shut again. 

“Bastard wasn’t even out of bed,” Levi growled as he climbed back into the driver’s seat, firing up the engine. 

I looked at Jean, who’d just about managed to arrange himself into a seatbelt, but had immediately flopped against the car door asleep afterwards. Well… seeing as he was out cold, might as well talk to Levi about _stuff_.

“After the location shooting…” I began. Immediately I saw Levi’s eyes flick over to me in the rear-view mirror for a moment, narrowing with question. I went on. “I mean, we get a little break from filming afterwards…” I chose to look out the window as we pulled off – too embarrassed to meet his eyes. 

It seemed I didn’t need to say much else to explain my thoughts, Levi got the hint immediately. “I’m free too.”

“So… could we do something?”

He was quiet for a moment, which started to worry me a little – you don’t want to ask someone out and them to not say anything at all in reply. It didn’t help that I was sitting behind his seat now, so I could only see a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. 

“One of my actors has to stay over in Heworth in a few weeks. She’s pretty high-profile, so I need to go check out the hotel we’re going to put her up in,” He was speaking slowly, and I wasn’t really sure where he was going with this. “We could go there after you’re done filming.”

I swear my heart could have exploded. 

Pointedly looking out the window to try and hide my smile from Levi, I forced my voice to come out as steady and nonchalant as it possibly could. “Alright.”

“Alright.”

Jean shuffled in the seat beside me, but he still seemed out for the count, so I wasn’t too worried about continuing the conversation with Levi. “So… is _this_ trip a date?”

“What is it with you and dates?”

“I just want to know in advance.”

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

My eyelids were starting to ache from the effort it was taking to keep them open, sure, but I wanted an answer. My body had other ideas though, and before I knew it I was starting to drift off again. 

“Yeah, it’s a date,” Levi said just as I closed my eyes. I smirked. 

The next few hours were a horrible half-asleep muddle of driving and car-swapping and getting a little too comfortable when napping in the back of the car with Jean, but eventually I was awake enough to somewhat enjoy the long drive to the location shooting. Marco was good company, Jean not so much, and Petra was trying to keep her attention on the road as Reiner tried to distract her with the oddest conversation I’ve ever had to listen to. I will admit to texting Levi perhaps a little too much after we parted ways – my phone held close to stop the others from seeing who I was messaging so often – but we now had more solid plans to this ‘hotel check’ he’d suggested. Seriously, his excuses were embarrassing.

When we pulled up at the place we were staying at for the shoot, we were given our room assignments. You’d think a production this big would mean the main cast would get a room each… Nope. Petra tossed Reiner and me card keys for our room, and sent us up to have a brief rest before we started. We dragged our stuff up with Marco and Jean (who were sharing the room beside us), and then I finally saw a bed. 

“I call the one by the window!” Reiner said, shoving me aside and throwing his bag onto the far bed. 

“Bastard,” I grumbled, kicking the door shut and tossing my own bag down, and dropping straight onto the pillows. They had that super clean hotel smell, which I suppose was better than if they smelled like old feet or something, but I still would have preferred… you know… a different type of clean smell. Like the one from Levi’s apartment. 

I groaned, burying my head further into the pillows. I needed to get my fucking head in order before we started filming: and that meant Levi: _out_ , and professional actor with remembered lines: _in_.

“Hey, is there something up with those two?”

I turned my head to the side to look at Reiner. “Who?”

“Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee next door,” He folded his arms, narrowing his eyebrows in thought. “I mean, Jean’s been acting weird for a while now, but now Marco’s joining in?”

Urgh, I really didn’t want to try and work out Horseface’s current situation with Marco; it wasn’t like Jean told me the tales of woo in his heart or anything, but it had been obvious pretty soon that there was something a little _more_ than just friendly banter between him and Marco. Knowing him, he’d probably just fucked something up; I had more important things to think about. 

“Think they’ll be ok on the shoot?”

“They’re professionals. They’re not stupid enough to let their personal life get in the way of work,” I rolled off the bed and shoved my phone in my pocket. “Come on, we better get over to the set. I’d rather not have Petra sent up to drag our asses down.”

The day was hectic; the moment we stepped back into the hotel lobby, we were herded up by crew members. I knew we had to get a lot down in a few short days, but the speed at which I was thrown from place-to-place was ridiculous. The costume fitters were getting pissed that hair and make-up wanted more time with me, meaning as Gunter was dragging me over to the actual set by the arm, Erd and Auruo were chasing after me shoving make-up brushed in my eye and pretty much pulling chunks of my hair out in the fuss. I’d never been so grateful to see Petra waiting behind the cameras with a seat and coffee reserved just for me. 

Seriously, so grateful, I kissed her. 

Jean and Marco arrived a little after Reiner and I had; and they seemed to be bombarded with the same treatment as I had been. 

“Alright Eren, you’re not needed much for this scene,” Petra was saying as she glanced over a script – another assistant collected my phone for safe-keeping. “You’re cue is Jean’s _‘Please get up’_ , but don’t rush in, let him have the moment. Just wander into frame then, but only start your line when you feel it seems most natural, yeah?”

“No problem.”

“Then after this scene we’ve doing the confrontation with you and Reiner, so you’ll have to stick around.”

I nodded, downing the last of my coffee and letting her take it away as she went to stop Reiner flirting with the set designer – when she finally pulled him away, he took up his seat beside me. 

“Set’s looking good,” I said, nodding at the intricate ‘town’ before us. I don’t know how they created something like this, but it really did look like a war-torn town: debris, smoke, even fake bodies lay everywhere. There was also a bunch of extras that looked all-too excited to start running around screaming bloody murder at each other. According to the script, this was somewhere we’d just had one of the big fight scenes – where we discover Reiner’s character’s betrayal, and then Marco’s character is killed. 

We sat back and watched Marco take centre stage. He’d not really been in any scenes by himself, so it was weird to see him acting with Jean… but the guy was really good. I guess playing the whole ‘good-hearted victim’ suited him, as even I felt a little stressed watching him play out his death. The way they filmed it meant you never actually saw _how_ he died, but there was a brief interaction with someone the camera never showed – I think it was supposed to be implied to be Reiner, but Marco managed to perform unbelievably well just conversing with thin air. 

A moment later, they cut the scene briefly to do Marco’s ‘dead’ make-up: shooting some of the extras instead for the brief montage before Jean would come out. 

“Christ, that’s a little realistic…” Reiner muttered to me, nodding at Marco. His arm had actually disappeared – for a moment I thought they’d just lopped his arm for the sake of the film – and the artists here and a sickening talent for making the blood they used look very realistic. I hoped Jean was allowed to see the effect before he started acting, or else he’d probably have a heart attack. 

They finished and started up shooting again in a heartbeat, and before I knew it, Jean was stumbling through the set. Deciding to get ready for my cue, I pushed myself to my feet and went to stand just behind the cameras near Marco’s body.

Jean was calling out for ‘Chris’, desperately searching, until he finally came across Marco. Somehow, I don’t think the horror on his face was just acting. He looked truly horrified. There was a deadly silence over the set – even when people had to be quiet, there was still people whispering and rustling about with work away from the boom mics, but this time… there was nothing. When I glanced behind me, every set of eyes was locked onto Jean. 

Jean fell to his knees and I jumped: that wasn’t in the script. I mean, the ground consisted of jagged bricks and shit… that must have fucking hurt! The way his voice was shaking, his hands trembling, it actually made me chest ache. When I heard the line I was waiting for I stepped into the shot, but my legs felt pitifully weak. You know, I didn’t even have to act either; at this stage even my normal face was heart-broken. 

He clung to Marco’s body, so I figured this was the best time to step in. 

“Jake…” I touched his shoulder. “Jake, we have to go.”

“Marco…”

My hand tightened. 

Had he… just said ‘Marco’? No… he wasn’t that much of an idiot… right? I mean, he wouldn’t… he couldn’t… 

Dammit Horseface. 

I grabbed his arm and hurled his sorry ass to his feet, his whole body barely strong enough to stand, and he ended up just sinking against me. His tears seeped through the fabric of my shirt. Idiot. He was a fucking idiot. 

Yet I still patted his back in some sort of reassurance. 

Someone called ‘cut’ but Jean didn’t move off my shoulder at all. He was completely wrapped up in his own little panicked world – losing his grip between reality and a fucking _film_. Over his shoulder, I saw Marco getting to his feet. He avoided my gaze, probably all too aware that I was close enough to have heard what Jean was saying. 

I smacked the idiot’s back again. “Good work, Kirschtein,” I said through gritted teeth. He needed to pull himself together – people were starting to approach. 

When he finally let go of me, I escaped away from the crowd as fast as possible. Most of the crew were crying; going on and on about how beautiful a performance Jean had put on. Ha. Performance. 

I didn’t want to get caught up in whatever was going on with Kirschtein…

Sadly, it seemed that didn’t happen. 

With Jean and Marco done for the day, they headed back, leaving Reiner and I to shoot our scene. It was enough to get my mind off whatever the fuck was going with the other two; Reiner was brilliant to work with (even if he had a habit of pulling lewd faces at me from behind the camera during my shots), and after him I had to shoot a quick ‘phone call’ scene with Christa, who arrived nearer dark. The three of us headed back to the hotel, grabbed dinner, and headed up for a relatively early night. 

By the time Reiner was snoring away, I was still staring up at the ceiling trying to sleep. There wasn’t really something in particular keeping me awake, my body just didn’t seem on board with the whole ‘sleeping’ thing, even though I was totally exhausted. Rolling over, I felt around for where I’d tossed my phone. The light felt like it was burning my eyes when I unlocked it; the sight of no new messages or emails was a tad irritating, so I checked facebook and twitter absentmindedly for a half hour or so. 

The phone buzzed softly as a text came through. 

_From Levi  
It’s ten. Get off facebook, brat._

A smile broke out onto my face before I even finished reading the text. If he saw I was online, that meant he had to be stalking me a little: he wasn’t my facebook friend. Hell, I didn’t even know he had facebook. 

_To Levi  
Maybe you should get off facebook too then? Or are you having too much fun staring at my ass in all my photos?_

_From Levi  
I don’t have to work tomorrow. And your ass isn’t that good in these photos anyway._

I clamped a hand over my mouth in case my laugh woke Reiner. 

_To Levi  
I’m sorry they’ve disappointed you._

_From Levi  
You should be. Now sleep._

Feeling it wouldn’t be the best idea to keep annoying Levi right now (he may have had this weird thing going on with me, but he was definitely the type to put work before pleasure, and I could almost hear him saying “well, we better cancel the hotel if you’re more into facebook than work”), I put my phone back down and turned over.

And then it started. 

Jean and Marco in the next room being noisy-ass-fucks. I don’t know what was going on, but there was talking and bumping around and holy fuck was it annoying. Sitting up, I grabbed my phone again. 

_To Horseface  
Horseface, me and Reiner are literally right next door! Will you shut the fuck up?!_

I didn’t get a reply.

After one particularly loud yelp, Reiner woke with a start. 

“The fuck?” he mumbled, looking around with his eyes still half-closed

Then came the moans. 

Reiner and I glanced at one another, eyes wide and now completely awake. I was typing out another message in a second, and Reiner scrambled to the wall to press his ear against it. 

_To Horseface  
OMG WHAT ARE THOSE NOISES? ISNT MARCO IN THERE WITH YOU?_

“Holy shit, Eren! They’re totally going at it in there!” Reiner gasped, waving my over to listen. 

“I don’t want to know!” I typed out a couple of panicked messages to Connie – if Jean was going to fucking get it on with Marco in the room beside me and be loud about it, then I was going to fucking tell his housemates. 

The moans grew louder. And then the bedsprings started going. And I wanted to die. Or rip out my eardrums. Either was fine. 

_To Horseface  
HOLY FUCK TELL ME THAT’S NOT WHAT IM HEARING. CHRIST JEAN PLEASE TELL ME IM NOT HEARING THAT._

Reiner was telling me the fucking minutes of what was going down in there, and I gve up and hid myself under my duvet – willing sleep to come so I didn’t have to listen to _that_. 

I don’t know how long it went on for, but even Reiner grew tired of it after a while. As the noise settled down, I typed out one last message. 

_To Horseface  
I am going to kill you._

I felt cheated. Kirschtein was getting laid, and I wasn’t. 

_Kirschtein._

Life is bullshit. 

I was now a million times more certain that in a few nights, that would change. 

The following morning, Kirschtein actually had the balls to ask me to lend him condoms. I was totally against it – there was no way he was going to keep getting laid until I had at least had _one_ good fuck (you know… that I actually remembered). I caved eventually, feeling bad that his only other option where borrowing Reiner’s fucking XXL ones… 

Jean and I shared a sort of comradery in the embarrassment of sizing ourselves up against Reiner. So yeah, the condoms were his. 

That day’s shoots went without incident. It was sort of sickening seeing how clingy Jean and Marco were. And there I was, checking my phone every ten minutes, only to confirm that no, there wasn’t a text from Levi there. Not that I ever expected him to be the type to text a lot, but still… it was irritating having to deal with it whilst the fucking horseface was right next to me experiencing his spring of love or whatever. 

By the time Jean and I had all crawled into the car to take us back to the hotel (seriously, fuck Reiner and Marco for getting home before lunch…), we were barely awake enough to talk. I hadn’t eaten for hours, and even then it was a pitiful apple since we had to seriously rush some of the shooting to get it in before it got dark. The conversation consisted of “I’m hungry” and grunts of agreement – nothing else. We were all ready to clear out the entire hotel’s kitchen when we finally got there. 

As we stepped into the hotel lobby, I forgot about the noises my stomach was making. 

A shape tackled into Jean, nearly sending him straight to the floor. I was a little more concerned with the other person standing in the hall approaching us. 

My heart was pounding as he came closer, staring at me with expectant eyes. My voice came out in a squeak.

“Levi?”


	10. The Legend of the Pixis Flask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 surprise visit + 1 bar night + Pixis pouring some unknown substance into Eren's drink = a night to remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smexy times! Woo!  
> I cannot stress how much I've been looking forward to this chapter. And the next one is just as good (for me, at least!)
> 
> This wasn't supposed to be updated so soon, but POH is ending in a couple of weeks and that makes me horrifically stressed... so SMH is my coping mechanism!  
>  ~~I'm fucked when this series ends too...~~  
>  Thanks for reading, enjoy folks!
> 
> [My Tumblr!](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)

No matter how long I stared at him, my mind just didn’t accept that Levi was actually standing in the hotel lobby, staring back at me. He cocked an eyebrow, apparently amused at the complete and utter disbelief that was probably plastered across my face. I was half tempted to touch him – just, you know, to make sure he wasn’t just a figment of my sex-deprived, hormonal imagination. 

“What are you doing here?” I ended up asking, pining my arms to my side, since I was pretty sure I’d get a few funny looks if I just casually started rubbing my hands all over Levi’s face. 

Levi seemed pleased I’d finally spoken properly. “Hanji was discussing Jean’s work with Pixis last night, and he said we should come up and join in tonight.”

“Tonight?” My mind raced, but I couldn’t remember hearing anything about something happening tonight. He opened his mouth to reply, but both of us caught onto something Hanji was saying to Jean. 

“It means we’re having a big party!” she sung, being as touchy-feely with Jean as always. 

Levi rolled his eyes and beckoned me to follow him as he wandered over to her. “And by ‘big party’, she means we’re getting drunk at the bar.” He directed the past part of that to me as well, an explanation, I suppose. 

“So you’re…” I began, unsure of how to phrase the question on my mind. Levi looked back at me, now ignoring Jean’s pouting face and Hanji’s continued ramblings. He seemed to get what I meant, and nodded. 

“I’ve got a room booked here tonight, yes. You can have a lift off me tomorrow.”

I swear my heart could have exploded there and then; that meant we were driving straight to another hotel from here, right? And if he had a room booked here for tonight… did that mean I had an extra night with Levi on the table? I tried to hide the grin that was slowly trying to force its way onto my face, and somewhat succeeded, I think. 

Petra approached then, saying that the crew had organised a night in the hotel’s bar for everyone tonight – all expenses paid for, so we should head up for a little rest before coming back down to meet everyone for the end of location shoot gathering. Levi told me to head up and change, since he wanted to go speak to Pixis anyway, so I reluctantly left with Jean. Marco met us on the way to the elevator, saying his agent had also been invited. They both seemed down-trodden in the elevator, and I didn’t want to ask why (I could already imagine that this might have stopped some gross, yucky plans of theirs that I didn’t want to think about…). Still, for all they were disappointed, I was over the moon for more time with Levi. 

Reiner appeared just after I’d grabbed a quick shower (even if I didn’t think I particularly needed one, I figured Levi would think otherwise), and we both quickly got changed into something casual-smart. Before we knew it, we were heading downstairs. As soon as we stepped into the hotel bar, people were in our faces – shoving drinks into our hands and shouting praise in our faces. I spotted Levi across the room chatting with Pixis and some producers – completely in work mode – so I allowed Petra to drag me to a table with her. 

I didn’t even realise how fast I was drinking until it was too late.

The sound department arrived, and Petra and I immediately called them to our table, flooding them with questions about the film’s soundtrack. As we talked, the drinks kept coming, and by the time we’d challenged each other to a shot competition, the singing had started. I wasn’t the best singer sober, but drunk I was even more out of tune than usual (and yet not as bad as Petra’s cat cries beside me…). The others grouped around our tables (we’d pulled a bunch together) either joined in, laughed at the terrible sing-along, or begged us to stop for the sake of their ear drums. 

The song came to an end abruptly when one of the sound crew got the most hilarious hiccups I’d ever heard… Well, they were normal hiccups, but to a drunken Eren they were the funniest thing in existence. It was at that point that Petra loudly proclaimed we should start a music group.

Reiner’s voice pulled my attention away from the rest of that conversation. “Jean, can you even stand up?” 

Turns out the horseface that was sitting beside me was prodding Ymir on the arm repetitively. Ah, I always forgot Jean was the sleepy drunk… I settled in to watch the scene unfold, always happy to listen to Jean make a fool of himself (I mean, come on, even I wasn’t slurring that much yet!). It only got funnier when Jean decided the only way to get out of his seat was to slide under the table. 

“Jean! The hell, man?” I shouted as he sat right down on top of my feet. All I heard was a cackle, and then he was crawling between legs to try and get out. 

Those of us still at the table laughed, watching him stumbling across the bar. 

And my smile fell. 

Jean had stood up, taken a few steps, and immediately collapsed. And no, I wasn’t feeling sorry for Kirschtein, my smile fell because the person who’d helped him stand up was Levi. 

In the hour or so we’d been down here, Levi had been pretty much out of sight – deep in conversation with various big wigs that were around. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes when I not-so-subtly stared his way. I felt like I was miles away from him, and yet horseface falls over and is suddenly being led across the bar by Levi? Yeah, that was fucking unfair. I turned away quickly. 

“Reiner, that’s going to fall!” Christa suddenly warned Reiner – he was in the middle of building a pyramid out of the hundreds of empty glasses cluttering up our table. 

“Nah, I’ve built this with engineering genius!” Reiner promised. “It’ll only fall if you knock it!”

“If it falls and smashes, and a shard touches Christa,” Ymir warned, leaning across the table to give Reiner a pointed look. “You can say goodbye to your dick.”

“Well I know one person who won’t appreciate that…” Annie muttered from Reiner’s other side. Reiner elbowed her, and they started talking in muttered whispers. My eyes wandered back across the bar, searching for a glimpse of Levi that I didn’t see. 

“Eren! Empty glasses are not allowed,” came Pixis’ voice. I glanced to the side just in time to see Auruo carrying Petra’s rather limp body away, and Pixis slid into her seat next to me. He grinned – his cheeks red from alcohol – and pointed to one of the sound crew. “Go grab our star a Black Russian on the rocks!”

“Sir!” The guy scarpered immediately. 

“You look way too sober for my liking, young Jaeger!” Pixis said, resting an arm along the chair behind me. 

“You didn’t hear me singing,” I winked. 

“Petra drowned out most, dear girl.”

The sound guy was already back, placing a cocktail down in front of me. I nodded my thanks and reached out to pick it up, but Pixis battered my hand away and pulled a flask out of his jacket. 

“To make it _really_ special…” He poured a clear liquid out of the flask and added it to the cocktail. The Black Russian suddenly gave off a smell of pure alcohol, if that was even possible; it clogged my nose and burned my airway as the smell went down. “You need a bit of Pixis magic…” The director motioned to the drink, this time allowing me to drink it. Most of the table was now watching, excited to see the effect of whatever Pixis had in his flask. 

So I took a gulp. 

_Holy fuck._

I don’t know what was worse: the fire that was ripping its way down my throat and burning every taste bud on my tongue to ash, or the taste of vodka that attacked the few taste bud survivors. I only just managed to swallow before coughing up my fucking lungs. Pixis’ laugh echoed through the bar, and he slapped me on the back. 

“That’s how we do it, kid! Keep going!”

“Go on, Eren, down it!”

So I did. 

And that’s the story of how I ended up completely pissed off my head, and lying on my back on top of a table in a hotel bar. 

Hanji’s face hovered over me, grinning widely and holding a tray of shots in her hand. Reiner grabbed my shoulders and pushed me upright, as Hanji handed me each shot and I downed them in time to the chorus of cheers around me. With each shot, I tossed the (plastic, luckily) glass aside into the crowd of people now watching the ‘make Eren drink as much shit as possible’ game. With the last shot glass thrown aside, the cheers of congratulations made me grin – despite the fact that the word was sort of really spinning now, even though I was leaning against Reiner’s fucking rock-hard chest (when had he taken his shirt off…?). 

Ymir appeared in my line of vision left, her mouth moving but her voice not reaching my ears. When she held a pint glass of something out to me, I got the message though, and took it with a proud nod. 

Well, maybe now I can put ‘downs drinks without spilling any’ on my CV? 

Christa was beside me, rubbing my arm – again, mouth moving, but no sound coming out. The lights in the room were flashing. Everyone was dancing and their screams and laughter blurred together with the music. The bass line was pounding in time with my heart. I was burning. My whole body was burning. 

I needed to cool down. 

I was on fire. I needed water. I needed ice. I pushed Christa aside, swinging my legs off the table and pulling away from Reiner’s grabbing arms. They were both trying to stop me, trying to talk to me, but how was I supposed to hear when they’d turned their voices on mute? Idiots. My legs felt unsteady, but my body was so hot I managed to force them to move. I bumped and bounced against bodies in the crowd, desperately trying to scramble out of the ocean of bodies. 

Ice. Water. Something. Too hot. 

I’d made it to the door of the bar, and shoved my body against it until it flung open and got me out of the room. The hotel lobby stretched out in front of me – dark and dead, and still so, so, hot. 

The front doors to the hotel were there, waiting, and I was running. I needed air. I needed the cold. I needed to put out the fire that was consuming me. 

And the night outside was perfect. 

As soon as I stepped out, I was pelted by the chilled wind. The flames died, and the breeze soothed my skin. I breathed deep; taking in the fresh air, free of the stench of alcohol and… Alcohol… Ugh, so much alcohol. 

I stared up at the sky. The black canvas, the white stars splashed against its surface… it was something to ground me, something to stop the dizziness. It was nice. 

“Eren.”

I turned, called by the first voice to actually reach my ears in a while, and could only stare at the person stepping out of the hotel towards me. 

Levi frowned. “What the hell you doing? It’s freezing out here.”

“I was burning,” I explained. 

The creases in his forehead deepened and he let out a sigh. “I should have kept a closer eye on you,” Stepping closer, he held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

I reached out to him, but pulled my arm back at the last moment. “I’ll burn you.”

“You won’t burn me,” he said.

I was still reluctant, but I eventually took his hand. His skin felt cooling against mine, and he turned to tug me back inside. He kept walking, gripping my hand tight as he led me through the lobby and into an elevator. 

My shoulders slumped. “Are you going to send me to bed?”

“For being drunk as a horse, yes.” Levi pressed a button and the doors slid closed. 

I pondered the words for a moment before correcting him. “I’m not drunk as a horse. Horseface was much drunker than me.”

“He was, but he at least went to bed three hours ago.”

Had it really been three hours? Fuck. That was a lot of drinks. 

The elevator came to a stop and Levi, hand still holding mine, pulled me out. It was only when he stopped at a door and pulled a key out to open it that I realised something was off. He pushed the door open and pulled me inside. I glanced around briefly, before turning to him. 

“This isn’t my room.”

“It’s mine,” Levi explained, pulling off his jacket and hanging it on the back of a desk chair. As he was undoing his tie, he paused and looked at me carefully. “Or would you prefer me to take you back to your own room?”

“No.” My answer was immediate.

“Ok then,” He returned to removing his tie, hanging that over the chair as well and undoing a few of his shirt buttons. His eyes landed on me once again, looking me up and down. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Not going to throw up?”

“No.”

“Make sure it stays that way,” he warned. “Come on, get into bed, drunken brat.” 

Levi kicked his shoes off and headed into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. I looked back around the room; it was much fancier than mine and Reiner’s, with the seating/lounge area in a completely separate room to the bedroom. I wandered past the sofa and TV, and through an archway into the large bedroom. The solo double bed was a sight I was happy to see – I was a bit worried it would be a twin room like mine.

The world wasn’t spinning so much anymore, but I still had to sit on the bed before I was steady enough to take off my shoes and socks. The alcohol-fuzz was taking over my head, and I giggled to myself over nothing in particular as I shoved my jeans off and hauled my shirt over my head. They ended up in a clump on the floor, and I crawled up the bed to collapse into the pillows. I sniffed; it didn’t smell like Levi, but I suppose that was to be expected. 

“Oi, move along.”

I peered back as Levi stood at the side of the bed, brilliant chest exposed, and just a pair of loose joggers hanging off his hips. I was too busy eating him up with my gaze to actually move for him, so he just tutted and shoved me along a little so he could slide under the covers beside me. 

“Are you sleeping on top of the sheets, or what?” he asked, hand reaching out to flick the switch next to the bed that I assumed was for the lights. 

“Mm,” was all I could reply. As the lights clicked off I tried to shuffle around just enough to get my legs under the covers – I think Levi helped begrudgingly, but I was too busy keeping my gaze fixed on the lines of his muscles. 

He was aware of my stare. “Do you even fucking blink when you’re drunk?” 

“No time to blink…” I told him. 

His eyebrows lifted a tad, and there was a hint of a smile threatening his lips, but he shook his head and turned onto his side. His back was just as nice to look at as his chest, but I didn’t feel like just looking tonight. 

I didn’t even really realise what I was doing until Levi growled. “The fuck you think you’re doing, brat?”

I’d shuffled closer and was trailing my fingers along his back, hooking my arm around his waist to trace the lines of his abs. He didn’t fight my touch, so I was smiling in relief when I pressed the first kiss to the back of his neck. 

“I thought I’d already explained that I don’t enjoy fucking drunken kids.”

“I’m not as drunk this time…” I whispered against his skin. 

“Well that’s bullshit,” He removed my hand when I started to push it past his waistband. “We’re going to the hotel tomorrow, so save it.”

“But I want it now.”

“Not when you’re drunk. You’ll just forget it all again and mope.”

I huffed and grabbed his shoulder. I’m not an idiot; I know he was stronger than me (especially when I had alcohol in my system), and that I only managed to turn him onto his back to face me because he let me, but as I moved to hover over him, my drink-fuzzed mind made me feel cocky. 

I stared down at him, hands either side of his head on the pillow as he glared up at me, and I swung a leg over to straddle his body. I was still hot… but at this point I was thinking less of cooling down and more of turning the heat into something else. 

“Eren–”

“Just a little…” I asked as I leant closer, brushing my lips along his jaw. When I pulled back to double check his response, I watched his eye twitch a little. Heh, I was starting to catch on to that little habit; his eye always twitched when he was trying to keep himself in check… when he was tempted. 

Sure enough, a moment later, he was reaching up and pulling me back down to him. That kiss was amazing. That kiss was like my reward. That kiss showed Levi was just as needy as me. His hands held me tight, one sweeping up into my hair and gripping tight; forcing my head to move as he pleased, tilting and turning just how he wanted it to. His teeth scraped along my lower lip, drawing an excited gasp out of me, and he chuckled when my body tensed in eagerness. 

“Just a little you drunken brat,” he murmured against my lips, barely breaking contact to give me the warning. I didn’t mind; even this kiss was enough for me. 

Well… no it wasn’t, but you get the point. 

The first rub of our hips was an accident; I was just trying to rearrange myself, lower myself a little closer, and Levi just happened to move at the same time. As soon as the needy pleasure shot up my hips, I knew that contact was necessary. Immediately. I broke the kiss for a second, taking the moment to gather my breath again and roll my hips downwards against Levi. 

A low, beautiful growl escaped his throat at that. His eyes narrowed as they met mine, but his hands slid down my bare sides – scratching long lines down my skin and making me twitch in anticipation – until he at last stroked his hands across my hips, over my boxers, and pushed my ass back down against him. This time it was my turn to make a sound; a desperate gasp as I rocked my hips against him again. I rolled down, and he ground up; and in no time we were in a panting mess as our clothed erections rubbing against each other sent the ripples of pleasure through each of us. My arms started to feel weak, the world was spinning again, but all I could think of was keeping up that movement, keeping up the pleasure. 

I pressed my forehead against Levi’s, letting his hands control the movement of the grinds, and taking the moment to watch his expressions. The clenched teeth, the reddening cheeks, the strands of hair sticking to his face with sweat… _This_ was what I’d truly missed out on. Forget the simple, hot excitement of sex… that first night I’d missed seeing Levi wrapped up in the heat of the moment. And that was a crime I’d never forgive myself for. 

“Shit…” Levi groaned, thrusting his hips more violently to increase the contact. 

High keens were slipping out of my throat as the heat engulfed me completely. My head was foggy; I was being drowned in the sensations, and the alcohol that was still in my system was only making the moment more blurred. I was starting to lose track of what was happening… Who’d started this next kiss? Me? Levi? Would Levi be pissed that it was sloppy and breathy? Were those my moans? How loud were they? Was I thrusting down, or was Levi pushing me down? And those words… That was Levi speaking… I had to listen, but I couldn’t hear. He was saying something. My name? I don’t know. 

Next thing I knew, was the overwhelming punch of heat, and I was choking out Levi’s name as I came. My hips shook, my whole body trembled, barely able to keep my body form just collapsing on top of Levi. He was still moving, not yet at the edge, but the friction was becoming too much now I’d already reached the top and was falling back down. 

And then he hit the top too. I only just managed to keep my drooping eyes open long enough to see his face screw up, watch him arch his back beneath me and dig his head into the pillow. The strangled pant that filled the room as he came, and the long sigh as his body relaxed again. 

Then my eyes were closing, and my body was sinking. 

“Hey… don’t sleep yet…” Levi’s voice did little more than drift around my ears as he helped my body roll onto the mattress beside him. I knew he’d kill me later for dropping when I was still dirty, but the fuzziness in my brain took over, and before I knew it, I was out. 

Now, I wish I could tell you that was the first night in a long date of hot, steamy sexy times with Levi… but I can’t. 

Since about three hours later, I jolted awake to start the most horrific 24 hours of my life.


	11. 24 Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most horrific 24 hours of Eren's life... may not have been _completely_ horrific...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should not be updating this fic, but apparently I am so meh. Hopefully you guys approve!  
> Also, a huge thank you to [dontenz](http://dontenz.tumblr.com) for beta-ing for me ^^ 
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr!](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)

“Hanji, you fucking shithead, get back here!”

I probably should have been worried about how pissed Levi sounded, but I was too busy trying to keep what was left of the contents of my stomach… well, in my stomach. Though, at this point, four hours since first waking up with the overwhelming urge to projectile my innards across the hotel room (thank god there was a bin on hand, that’s all I’ll say), I was starting to doubt that there _could_ be anything left in my stomach to throw up. 

My body proved that theory wrong at that exact moment by making me hurl into the plastic bag Levi had given me. 

What wasn’t helping me feel better (you know, besides the flames and ice fighting over my body temperature, the churning of whatever the fuck was still alive in my belly, and the pain that was ripping my head apart), was the fact that Levi’s car was now starting to smell pretty fucking bad. 

“Eren,” I had just about enough energy left in me to lift my head out of the bag to look out the open car window. Levi frowned down at me from the outside before reaching inside and motioning me to pass him the bag I was holding. I clung to it tight, too afraid of what would happen if he took it away. “I’ve got you more,” he promised, holding up a huge load of bags that were like angels from heaven in my eyes. I nodded and handed the full bag out the window – I would have opened the door to make it easier, but the door was the only thing keeping me upright at the moment. 

He vanished for a moment, which gave me just enough time to get one bag out and ready for the next storm that was making its way up my throat. 

When Levi came back, I greeted him with a wonderful noise indeed. 

I was an awful person. 

“Well, Hanji’s fucking bailed,” Levi growled. I didn’t blame her; I wouldn’t want to drive hours in a small, cramped car with someone in my state. “So, I’ll have to get Kirschtein look after you on the way back.”

Usually, I would have complained at the mere thought of Jean being anywhere near me… but feeling the way I was, I didn’t care who was present, I just needed someone there. Levi seemed to catch onto my thoughts, as the next thing I knew a hand was stroking my back as I coughed up some more… I can only assume it was just bile at this point. 

“I thought you said you didn’t get hangovers?” Levi murmured. 

Spitting some of the residue out of my mouth, I took a breath to reply. “Whatever the fuck was in Pixis’ flask would suggest otherwise.”

“Yeah, well, I guess– Are you fucking kidding me?”

The hand on my back vanished and I mustered just enough energy to lift my head and peer out the open window at whatever had horrified Levi so much. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sight I was greeted with; in the end, I threw up instead. 

Jean horse-face Kirschtein, hobbling out of the hotel doors – the only thing keeping him upright was Marco’s shoulder – with a face greener than mine. Huge black circles swallowed his eyes, and his entire face seemed to be sinking inwards. Beside him, Marco kept muttering something with a warm smile; probably reassurance, if I had to guess. 

God, I hoped I didn’t look _that_ terrible.

“Please tell me you’re going straight to some fucking costume party, and you’re dressing as a zombie, Kirschtein,” Levi pretty much growled as the two finally reached the car. 

“Jean had… a little too much last night…” Marco said with an awkward laugh. Jean confirmed the comment by slapping a hand over his mouth and retching. I reached to the pool of bags around my feet and held one out the window to him. In the brief moment of contact when Jean took the bag off me, I felt a spark jolt through my fingers, and our eyes met…

…Yes, the most beautiful comradery is formed between two horrifically hung-over people. 

“I’m going to kill that shit-faced Hanji…” Levi snarled, whipping his phone out to send some angry text. As Jean barfed into the bag I’d given him, Marco rubbed his back and looked into the car; his eyes widened in pity as he saw me. 

“You’re ill too, Eren?”

“I’m not ill, I’m _dying_ ,” I muttered. 

“Well,” Levi said with a heavy sigh as he shoved his phone in his pocket. “You two are going to have to take shifts dying in the back. I can’t fucking drive and look after you both at the same time.” He added _‘Not that I’d want to’_ under his breath, but I think I was the only one who heard. But, as much as I appreciated Levi’s ass, I didn’t really feel like having to look to him for sympathy when I was throwing up continuously either – and since Jean didn’t even like Levi’s ass, he probably hated the idea even more than me. 

But then, and I’ll swear on my life that at this exact time, the clouds cleared and the sun beamed down upon him, an angel spoke. 

Marco raised a tentative hand. “Um… if it’s ok, I can come with you?”

There was a joint cry of “Yes!” from Jean and I (more like a gargle of groans, but the meaning still got across fine). 

“Weren’t you getting a lift with your agent?” Levi asked. 

“I actually think Hanji is getting in her car instead, and Mina’s car is pretty small, so…” Marco shrugged. He was quickly distracted by Jean loudly throwing up again. 

“Throw your bags in the boot and get in,” Levi ordered, not waiting another moment before hurrying to the driver’s side and climbing in. As he sat down, I heard Marco carefully strapping Jean in the backseat before putting the bags away. I went to roll my window up. Levi glanced at me. “Don’t bother. It’s going to start stinking even worse pretty fucking soon.”

And so, the most horrific four-hour car ride of my life began. 

I was only ever doing one of three things: sleeping, and by god I needed it; cheering Jean on through his harder moments; and puking my own guts out. A mere hour into the trip, we’d had to stop about six times so Marco could toss out the full bags, and Levi could step out to calm himself down – the thought that his car was in danger of being puked on was really getting to him. 

Yeah, if the world’s worst hangover wasn’t bad enough, I was also managing to stress out the guy I was meant to be fucking later tonight. So much for the hotel date… 

I kept reminding myself that this was the worst part; the long, stuffy car ride, and motion sickness adding to my already pretty fucking ill self. And that was pretty much the only thing that kept me sane through those four hours; the promise that once it was over everything would be fine. 

We made it… somehow.

“Are you feeling any better, Jean?” Marco asked from the back. 

“I’m never drinking again,” Jean moaned. “Never. Ever. Again.”

I was with him on that one, I really was. Sadly I couldn’t actually form words of agreement. Hopefully he got the message when I threw up my lungs into a bag. (It must have been my lungs, because there sure as hell couldn’t have been anything else left in my stomach). 

The car started to slow and I could have fucking cheered. 

“Alright, throw his hung-over ass out before he starts spewing again,” Levi ordered. I quickly realised we weren’t at _my_ stop, but Jean’s. That wasn’t so good. 

I was barely able to keep my mind together long enough to listen to Marco and Jean clamber out. Next thing I knew, Marco was at my window, taking the full bag from me. Levi handed me another immediately, and though I didn’t think I was going to throw up again just yet, I lowered my head to it anyway. 

Marco and Levi exchanged a few words, but I didn’t listen in; the prospect of having to continue to drive when I was feeling like this, plus just a whole bunch of guilt and sickening emotions was pushing me to the edge now. I blinked, desperately trying not to cry. Even in this state, I still wanted to regain some of my dignity. 

“Oi,”A warm hand fell on my head. “Are you ok?”

That was the last thing I needed… Yep, now the tears were welling up. “…Sorry.”

Levi sighed. “The hell are you sorry for?” His hand stroked through my hair, wiping away the sweat that was collecting on my forehead. “You ok for me to start driving again?”

I nodded, using the bag to hide my face. There was no way I wanted Levi to see me cry. 

His hand didn’t stop. “Do you want to just go home?”

Yep, definitely crying. 

“I’m sorry…”

“Would you stop apologising? Shit, it’s almost like you think you can actually be blamed for having a bad reaction to some old guy’s alcoholic concoction.” 

“I wanted to go to the hotel…”

Another sigh. The hand fell from my head, and suddenly I missed its presence. It didn’t vanish for long though, instead Levi grabbed my wrist and pulled my hands down – forcing the bag away from my face. He bent down, purposefully trying to look straight at my face, which happened to be the _last_ thing I wanted. Green skin, sobbing, runny nose: yeah, like that’s an attractive face. 

“Neither of us will enjoy it if we go now, idiot. So let me just take you home and get you to bed, ok?”

I nodded meekly. And he let me go, quickly getting the car ready and pulling away onto the road once more. I felt cold. 

It felt like no time at all before Levi was pulling into my street and bringing the car to a stop in our drive. I’m pretty sure he said something, but the moment the car engine was off, my head started pounding so loud I could barely hear my own thoughts. My stomach turned, but there was nothing trying to push its way up and out of me… just a hot, rotten feeling somewhere inside. I was freezing. 

“Hey, unless you’re planning to sleep there, get your arse out.” 

When had Levi gotten out? When had he opened my door? I guess it didn’t matter, because right now, the idea of crawling into a nice warm bed was the equivalent of winning the lottery. No, nevermind bed, I needed a hot shower. I needed a shower with water straight from the depths of hell itself… I was so fucking cold. I grabbed the side of the car, hoping it would help me to my feet. And it did. 

For a little while. 

“Eren?”

Then the world turned upside down. 

 

My bedroom ceiling was the sweetest sight ever. My body felt heavy, limp, but the pillow under my head was a blessing. 

“Hey,” A hand rested against my forehead. “You awake?”

“Mm…” I nodded (which I quickly discovered was not good for my feeble head). Glancing to the side, I saw Levi standing there, frowning deeply. 

“Don’t fucking scare me like that, you little shit,” he growled. “How are you feeling?”

I grimaced; that was a hard question to answer. In the end, I went with the strongest feeling I had. “Cold.”

“Cold? You’re burning up, how the fuck are you cold?”

“I’m just… cold.”

The hand on my forehead was warm though. That was something, at least. 

“Right… hang on.” He stood, his hand drifting away from my forehead as he started glancing around my bedroom. He opened a few cupboards, tutting to himself in irritation after and a while, but vanished before I could even start to speak. As he left my room, I spotted the sign that hung on my outside door – _‘Eren’s room’_ on a big fiery plaque that my parents got me when I was younger – and spent the next few minutes deciding whether I was glad the childish sign was there, so Levi had known which was my room, or if I should be mortifyingly embarrassed that he’d seen it. 

Those thoughts ended when I heard a loud racket from the landing, followed immediately by a “FUCK”. 

Levi had found what Mikasa and I affectionately call the ‘Shit closet’, apparently. The door to the place only opened maybe once or twice a year, and only then to shove in useless junk that we didn’t have a use for, but for whatever reason didn’t want to throw out. 

Desperately taking a gasp – because holy fuck, since when had I been this out of breath? – I called out to him. 

“Levi?”

There were a few other bangs, followed by racing footsteps and then Levi’s head was looking round the door. Either I was becoming delirious in my hung-over state (which was a very viable option at this point), or he looked… panicked?

“What’s wrong?” 

I couldn’t help a smile. “Extra blankets are in Mikasa’s room. At the top of the wardrobe.”

He blinked, but nodded and vanished again. I closed my eyes, letting the sounds of him stumbling over everything that had fallen out of the 'Shit closet' soothe me a little. I must have fallen asleep like that because the next time I opened my eyes, I was finally warm again… which was probably due to the _four_ blankets that had been thrown over me. I was so weighed down I couldn’t even move. My head was still pounding though, which I could really do without. 

Levi wasn’t around, so I figured he must have gone home to let me sleep or something (and no, I definitely _didn’t_ feel extremely dejected when I came to that realisation). 

Painkillers. That was what was required now. Then probably a few texts to Levi to apologise profusely or something. And maybe even a few to Kirschtein to see if he was faring better than I was. 

It took more effort than I care to admit to get out of bed – mainly because no matter how much I struggled and kicked, the blankets didn’t move an inch. In the end, I had to pretty much crawl out. I stood, legs feeling not too steady and glanced over the blankets; they were all tucked under the mattress with military neatness… so Levi did it then. Honestly, that made me smile; Levi tucked me in.

I was too busy marvelling at the whole ‘Levi tucked me in’ to notice the rest of my room, but when I stepped out into the hallway, that’s when I realised something was up. 

The mess from the Shit closet was no longer there. 

I must have seriously been out for hours if Levi had had time to shove all that back in. 

The stairs were too much of a challenge for me to get down feeling the way I did, so I pretty much just clung to the banister and slid along until I reached the bottom. Again, I didn’t really notice anything in particular at first but something about the whole house felt… _off_. Deciding it was just because of the headache, I headed into the kitchen. 

Where Levi was stood over the hob. 

“Levi?” My voice cracked as it came out. 

He spun round, glowering at me. “Get the fuck back into bed. Who said you could get up?”

“I…” Was he making _soup_? “I thought you were gone?”

“And leave you here to die and rot by yourself? As tempting as it sounds, I’m not totally heartless,” He tutted and left the pot on the hob to go to my cupboard and grab a gla- How did he know where we kept the glasses? “I’ll at least wait until your sister gets back.”

“You didn’t have to…”

He headed to the cupboard where we kept the medicine box, and rummaged around until he found some tablets. _How did he know where that was?_

A glass of water and the tablets were put down on the table. He motioned to it. “Sit and take them. This will be ready in a minute.”

I didn’t question it. I just sat down – grateful that he’d seemed to have read my mind about the pain, but also extremely weird-ed out by how familiar he was acting with my house. 

_That_ was when I realised. I downed a couple of tablets, and the moment I put the glass of water back on the table… _on a coaster_ … it hit me. 

“Did you _clean my house_?” 

Levi switched the hob off, moving to grab a bowl and spooning some soup into it. When he finally turned to me, he raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“You _cleaned_ my _house_?”

“I already answered that.” The bowl and a spoon were laced in front of me. “Eat. The tablets will work better on a full stomach.”

“You _cleaned my house_!”

“Stop repeating yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s fucking annoying.”

“No, why did you clean my house?”

“Because it was fucking filthy.”

“No it wasn’t!”

“That’s what a gross kid in his 20s would think. Now shut up and eat.”

The soup was good. I mean, sure, my tastebuds were completely fucked so I don’t even know what kind of soup it was, but it tasted just fine to someone who’d thrown up the majority of his innards over the past half a day or so. There wasn’t much conversation to go with it though; Levi was busy putting the leftovers away and cleaning the kitchen _again_. 

So, not only had I completely ruined our plans with the hotel, and basically sacrificed sexy-times for puking up everything inside me (not a fucking decent exchange, if you ask me), but now I’d made Levi look after my sorry-ass _and_ clean my whole house? 

Yeah, guilt. 

“Sorry,” I muttered when he took away my empty dish to wash it up. 

“Why don’t you apologise for apologising so fucking much, idiot?” he sighed. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You were ill. Not your fault.”

“But the hotel–”

“We can go once you’re feeling better. It’s just a hangover, loser. They only last a day or two at worst.”

“I was sick in your car.”

“You actually didn’t get a speck of puke anywhere other than in the bags. You did good there.”

“And now you’re looking after me, and cleaning the house. I’m so–”

“Oi, shithead,” His head snapped round, glaring at me. “I may not be angelic to Bodt’s level of existence, but I can at least look after someone I care about when he looks like he’s on his deathbed. And cleaning calms me the fuck down, so how about you be a man and accept the goddamn help?”

My head was reeling, so I just stared at my hands on the table in front of me. It was silly, being shaken by something that I was pretty sure was supposed to be more of a lecture than a compliment… but I suddenly felt warm, and my headache dulled to be replaced by flushing cheeks. 

“The fuck you grinning about now?” Levi grumbled as he dried his hands and wandered over to the table. 

“That you…” _No. Don’t say that._ “That you think Marco’s ridiculously angelic too.”

He frowned, like he was suspicious of what I was saying, but in the end rolled his eyes. “Anyone who can put up with Kirschtein for so long has to be.”

I just laughed. 

Yeah, I care about Levi too.

 

It was dark outside by the time Mikasa came home from work. She came running up the stairs, completely bewildered and shouting “Eren, why is the floor sparkling? What are you trying to hide?”, only to get very _very_ panicked at the sight of me (once again) tucked up in bed with a cold flannel on my forehead, and Levi sitting at my desk reading. 

Thankfully, my sister was more concerned with checking how close to death I was than freaking out at Levi’s presence. Of course, once she was (repeatedly) promised that I was perfectly fine and just had a bit of a bad hangover, she begun trying to take on Levi in a stare-down. 

And holy fuck was that uncomfortable.

“Whatever,” Levi said, breaking eye contact first and waving her away. “I’ll head off.” He stepped towards me, brushing his fingers across my jaw. “Ring me in the morning. Got it?”

“Got it,” I nodded. 

He smiled.

_He smiled._

_Levi fucking smiled. At me. He smiled at me. A proper, full-on, not even trying to hide it, smile._

My heart could have exploded right there. I know my lungs had already been puked out, so it wasn’t really surprising that I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, but yeah, the heart was definitely going next. 

Levi apparently didn’t notice my interior freak-out, since his fingers ran the length of my jawline and then vanished as he turned to leave the room. Stopping only to talk to Mikasa. “He took something for his head half an hour ago. Make sure he takes some more when it’s due, even if he says he’s fine.”

“Ok,” Mikasa seemed surprisingly cooperative when it involved taking care of me. “Has he eaten?”

“Soup, there’s more in the fridge if he needs it. But you might want to make him something more substantial. I’ve never seen someone throw up so much.”

“Right. Thanks.” She didn’t sound super thankful, but she was at least being polite.

Levi glanced back to me, offered a nod, and then left. Mikasa didn’t turn back to me until we heard the front door click shut. 

“Did he _clean_ our house?”

I just laughed; I didn’t have time to reply with anything else. Mikasa hurried off to go check the status of the rest of the house and see what “poisonous concoction he made you”, and left me to lie there staring at the ceiling. My heart still hadn’t settled down; it probably wouldn’t any time soon, not with that smile still engraved in my head. Levi had only been gone a minute and I already missed him. 

I buried myself under the covers. Maybe these 24 hours weren’t _completely_ terrible.

Ugh… I was seriously fucked.


	12. Fleeting Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so that fated day arrives... _the kiss scene_...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO LATE SO LATE!
> 
> Sorry for the delay guys, the holidays were just a vicious cycle of awful work shifts, eating, sleeping. I was more tired during the holidays than I usually am during uni term...  
> But I'm back now! Hopefully updates will be more regular now :) 
> 
> Thanks to the beautiful [Lily](http://a-norwegians-fitness-journey.tumblr.com/) who beta-ed for me!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [freckledbodty](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)!

The next week consisted of way too little Levi and way too much Jean. The morning after Levi had brought me home, I was pretty much on the mend, but neither Mikasa nor Levi would allow me to even think of going anywhere without her supervision. It was sometime in that afternoon when I was texting Levi ~~begging~~ casually suggesting that if he came and kidnapped me we’d be able to make it to the hotel for even one day. Mikasa immediately stormed in and gave me a lecture about how I ill I was and how I’d stay with her until she deemed me well enough to do otherwise, and that was when I realised my sister and Levi were conspiring behind my back. After I called Levi out on it, he just brushed it off and said that he’d cancelled the hotel booking and was now working all week. I know that we could just go another week (in fact he was adamant that we’d do it in a couple of weeks instead), but I couldn’t help but feel I’d been a little cheated. 

I felt _very_ cheated when I realised _how much_ of Jean Kirschtein I’d end up seeing. Levi’s presence was pretty much non-existent after I briefly saw him at the office the first day (which totally doesn’t count, since he was pretty much always talking to big cheese Erwin Smith, and Mikasa was still keeping me at her side and checking my temperature every ten minutes). Jean’s presence? Always there. First day: he’d left to go meet Marco, and then we’d all caught a sight when we headed to Connie and Sasha’s for a movie and opened the door to see Jean standing pretty much naked with a packet of condoms in his hand. He’d thrown us out then and there, but the image is forever burned into my eyelids. Anyway, after that day, Mikasa dragged me out to see everyone (Jean included) pretty much every day – it was around this moment that I realised I was being kept by her side as punishment for getting that drunk. The weekend came, and all hopes of seeing Levi was dashed when I got to the shooting and found he wasn’t there. Just Jean. Lots and lots of Jean. So much Jean. 

I was so done with shooting scene after scene with Jean that when the next week came around and Christa came in so we could film one of our scenes, I hugged her. Can’t say Ymir was too pleased with that, but Christa just laughed and rubbed my back. 

“It’s alright, Eren. No Jean today,” she sung, letting me cling to her as long as I needed. See, this is what I loved about Christa Lenz – she _always_ knows what’s up.

“He doesn’t talk about anything but his damned boyfriend,” I moaned into her shoulder.

“We’re well aware…” Ymir muttered. She grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and started to try to tug me off Christa. “Let go now. You’ve both got to go get changed.”

I had to laugh when Ymir pulled me off, her face was pretty much green with envy. Christa seemed to be on the same wavelength as me and giggled. “Oh Ymir,” she said, wandering over and putting a hand on her arm. “You can’t do that when me and Eren have to kiss later.”

As Christa sauntered off to the dressing rooms, I watched the colour drain out of Ymir’s face. 

“W-wait, what?” Ymir yelped, forgetting about my existence entirely and running after Christa. “Kiss?”

A moment later and Petra was ushering me through to my own dressing room, talking away about today’s shoot and giving me the low down on what to expect. She kept reassuring me that it wouldn’t be like some of the big action scenes where we had thirty or forty crew watching, so I shouldn’t be too nervous about having to do a romance scene with a load of onlookers. Honestly though, I’d done enough ridiculous dares with my group of friends to care about that sort of thing; besides, it’s not like anyone thought it was an actual romantic moment between Christa and me. Well, except maybe Ymir, but that’s just because she’s ridiculously overprotective – even for a bodyguard. 

Petra had a long argument with Auruo as he did my make-up (she swore later that it was just a regular conversation, and I was mistaking Auruo’s idiocy for an argument…). She was still yelling comebacks as she left the room so Auruo could help me get into the costume. I then had to deal with another half hour of him rambling on about their disagreements as he made a couple of adjustments. 

He left me to go over the script until it was time for me to get called in, so I sat down on the sofa and started flicking through it. It was a simple enough scene: Nicholas finds out Sally has followed him and they meet up in a hotel, and then the usual soppy love stuff happens. Honestly, I think Sally is ridiculous to follow her army boyfriend across the world and puts herself in danger because she misses him, but hey, if the writers think it’s good, then who am I to talk? 

“Is there porn inside that script or something?”

I leapt out of my skin at the sudden voice. My heart didn’t stop racing when I looked up and saw Levi was now draping his jacket over a chair. 

_When the fuck did he get here?_

He turned to me and sighed. “I did knock.”

“You did?” 

“Yeah. But obviously the porn’s holding your attention.”

I frowned and showed him the script. “No porn. Just today’s scene.”

Levi gave a low hum that suggested he wasn’t really listening and went about to check his phone. I put the script aside and watched him. When his eyes flickered up at me, I didn’t make an effort to hide the fact that I was staring. He didn’t say anything either, just stared right back. I could feel my heart pounding in both relief and excitement to actually see him for a change, but this really fucking irritating voice in the back of my head kept reminding me he was just here for work. 

“Have you been busy?” I asked. It was a stupid question, really. We both knew he’d been working non-stop (and not with me) this whole week. The only conversations we’d had were a few texts here and there. He had apologised once or twice for being so absent – apparently one of his other actors had been in the middle of signing a really difficult contract. 

“Yeah,” he nodded – answering the pointless question anyway. He leant against the table, continuing to watch me. “The contract is sorted now, though. Things should be quieter for a little while.”

I didn’t dare let myself get excited thinking what that might mean for me, and simply answered with “That’s good.”

Levi smirked. All too aware of what I was doing. “Yeah.”

Someone knocked on the door, but even then neither of us broke eye contact. “Mr Jaeger, we’re ready for you.”

“Coming,” I called back. 

We listened for the footsteps to fade away before moving. Levi gave a slight sigh and slipped his phone into his pocket, beckoning me to hurry and follow him out the room. As we left, my eyes trailed over the jacket that he’d left on the chair. I don’t know if he’d left it on purpose so he’d have an excuse to come back here with me later, or if he actually just forgot about it. Either way, I didn’t mention it. 

Today’s set was a hotel room – obviously – and some of the crew were putting the last finishing touches on it; adjusting a lampshade here, adding a lipstick there, plumping the pillows a little more. Christa waved at me as I entered, before returning to her talk with Pixis as someone attacked her hair with hairspray.

Levi smacked my shoulder as he passed and headed over to speak to Petra who grinned widely as he approached. I didn’t have time to be jealous, as Pixis was suddenly there with his arm around my shoulder and steering both Christa and I towards the set. 

The scene was easy enough to do at the beginning, so we didn’t have to do too many takes other than when Pixis asked us to try something different. We did have to cut once when I went to sit on the edge of the bed and promptly missed – landing flat on the floor, which everyone on set thought was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. I laughed it off, rubbing my backside as Christa (the only one not laughing because she’s a fucking angel) frantically asked if I was alright. But, all in all, the shoot was going pretty smoothly. 

Until the kissing part came. 

It was supposed to happen in the middle of Sally and Nicholas’ argument (he was angry she followed him, and she was angry that he was angry). We were meant to be worked up, both angry and scared, and then Nick kisses her because that’s all he ever wants to do. It was going perfectly well until that moment; Christa was a joy to act opposite, and it was so easy to sink into the character and the scene with her. So… I don’t know what happened. 

“… Trust me to look after myself, Nick?” Christa yelled, tears actually clinging to her eyelashes. 

I paced faster around the room, gripping at my hair. “I _do_ trust you! But it’s dangerous, and I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. Don’t you get that?” I turned, storming back towards her and grabbing her shoulders. “Sally, you’re all I have! How could I ever live without you?” 

And then I was meant to kiss her. 

But I didn’t. 

I just stood there, silent, staring at her like I’d lost all thought. 

The set was silent; no one quite sure if I’d stopped for a reason or not. Christa just looked at me, only breaking character to raise her eyebrows at me very slightly. I knew exactly what was meant to come next, and it wasn’t like I was somehow against kissing Christa beauty-queen Lenz, I just… didn’t do it. 

Then came the expected “Cut!” from Pixis, and I still couldn’t move. 

“Eren?” Christa asked, her face a picture of concern. Only then did I let go of her.

Pixis came over and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Eren, everything alright?”

“I…” What was wrong with me? “Yeah, sorry, I just… blanked for a moment, I guess?”

“Don’t worry,” Christa smiled, rubbing my arm. “Happens to the best of us.”

Pixis nodded in agreement. “Well, I know you know the script, but want to glance over it?”

I tried to laugh it off as best I could. “No, I know it. I just…” Somehow, my eyes found Levi at the back of the room, leaning against a wall watching me with an unreadable expression on his face. My stomach tightened. 

“Well, when you’re ready, let’s take it from your last line,” Pixis said, not too concerned about my unfinished sentence. He wandered back to the cameras, and started talking to some of the crew about something. I couldn’t help but feel like he was stalling for my benefit. 

I refused to let myself look back over at Levi. “Sorry Christa…”

“It’s perfectly fine,” she grinned. I gave a smile back, but even I knew it was fake. Seeing it, Christa’s own smile fell and she looked to the ground for a moment, pretending to check her nails. 

Since Pixis was still buying me time, I took a deep breath and rubbed my neck – staring at the set wall (only because it was in the opposite direction to Levi). I needed to man the fuck up and stop acting so unprofessional. I was still telling myself this when Christa tapped me on the shoulder. 

“Hm?” I turned. 

And then she kissed me. 

I couldn’t even close my eyes, I was that confused. I just froze. She’d grabbed my shirt and pulled me down towards her so fast I wasn’t entirely sure it had happened at all... though I suppose the evidence was the fact her lips were pressed against mine. 

What. The. Fuck. 

She pulled back and smiled at me so angelically that I _still_ couldn’t move. 

“There,” She patted down the clothes she’d just tugged on and moved closer, so her voice would only reach me. “Now we’ve kissed, there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

_This girl is a goddess._

I couldn’t help but smile, I just hoped my cheeks weren’t going red. “Thanks…”

“But, sorry to say, we do have to snog a little next time.”

I laughed. “Oh no, I’m _so_ upset I have to snog one of the prettiest actresses in the country!”

Christa punched me, joining in the chuckles. Pixis chose that moment to prepare to start filming again. Briefly, I glanced back over at Levi. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, just staring at his phone.

Thankfully, the next take was better. Christa had helped wipe away the nerves, so when I grabbed her chin and hauled her into a kiss, I actually did it convincingly. The rest of the scene was make-out sessions, muffled “I love you”s, and a few dramatic moments of shirts being thrown onto the floor. We reshot a few bits and pieces due to bad camera angles and stuff, but thankfully it was all done and dusted pretty quickly. By the time Pixis was clapping for the end of the shoot, I’d completely forgotten my weird freeze earlier. 

Ymir was helping Christa shrug her shirt back on, but the blonde grinned over at me. “I look forward until the next opportunity to kiss you.”

I winked at her, ignoring Ymir’s not-so-hidden glare. “Maybe we should have some practice sessions.”

Christa laughed, and was promptly herded off by Ymir who openly stated she wasn’t too happy with the jokes. Petra came over a little later and thanked me for my work, quickly checking over my upcoming schedule and one of the more recent changes with me. I didn’t even realise someone was standing behind me until Petra looked over my shoulder and asked “That’s all correct, isn’t it Levi?”

I jumped, turning to see that my agent was indeed standing right there, typing away on his phone. 

“Yeah,” he nodded. 

Now, I could have been wrong here, considering that Levi is never the smiling type, but I’m pretty sure he seemed even more grumpy and short than normal. Petra didn’t seem to notice it, just smiled and said her goodbyes, jogging off to catch Pixis up. 

Levi didn’t look at me. “Come on, you’re done for the day.” He turned and started walking off without looking up from his phone. I blinked, a little unsure as to what happened – he hadn’t been this off earlier in the dressing room, had he? I followed him anyway; I didn’t want to irritate him further. 

When we got to my dressing room, he still hadn’t said a word. He just walked straight across the room and dropped onto the sofa… still on his phone. 

I decided to give him a wide birth for now, and focused on getting changed out of the costume. I grabbed the face wipes and started scrubbing the make-up off my face first (I learned on the first day that make-up went on last, and came off first, to getting any on the costume whilst I changed. As I tossed the wipes into the bin, I took a sneak peak at Levi in the mirror. He wasn’t on his phone anymore, but he was staring at the ground with the deepest frown I’d seen in a while. I said nothing, slipping my shirt off and hanging it up for the costume guys to deal with later. 

Then I glanced at Levi again, and an idea popped into my head. 

Instead of grabbing my own t-shirt to pull on, I first took off my trousers. Very, very slowly. I kept my back to him and carefully zipped down the fly, hoping it made enough noise in the silent room to draw Levi’s attention. Then, after unbuttoning them, I hooked my thumbs round the back and slowly started pushing them down. Carefully making them follow the curve of my ass and going so far as to bend down before stepping out of them. When they were at last off, I started to hang them up too – taking the chance to sneak another glance at Levi. He was definitely looking this time. 

Feeling somewhat proud, I stopped with the teasing and reached for my jeans and started tugging them on normally. I was doing them up when Levi finally spoke. 

“Is this just a game to you?”

That… wasn’t the response I’d expected. I turned, frowning in confusion. My heart skipped a beat when I saw how angry Levi looked. 

“Huh?” was the best reply I could give. 

“Am _I_ just a game to you?” he asked, face scrunching even more. “Do you get some sort of kick out of teasing your boss, or something?”

“Levi, what are you talking about?”

“I’m not really into messing around with some brat who’s already dating a chick.”

Now I was _really_ confused. “What? I’m not dating anyone!”

“You and Lenz looked awfully cosy smooching there.”

“Yeah, because we’re supposed to! We’re actors, remember?”

“I’m talking about the kiss before the cameras were even rolling.”

Oh. 

_Oh._

It only hit me then that Levi didn’t look angry. 

He looked hurt. 

I suddenly I wanted to punch myself. 

“Yeah, silence,” Levi scoffed. “Exactly.”

“It wasn’t like that!” I shouted. My stomach was churning with the thought that this might be breaking whatever Levi and I had. I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t let that happen. “Christa just kissed me to make me calm down about the script kiss!”

Levi cocked an eyebrow. He didn’t believe me. “You’re an actor, idiot. I know you’re professional enough to kiss when you have to.”

“She did it because she thought I was nervous about the scene.”

Levi rubbed his eyes. “You _just_ said t–”

“I was nervous because you were watching the scene!”

Levi sat perfectly still; hand still over his eyes. I stood there feeling my face heat up in embarrassment. I didn’t know whether to feel bad that he’d gotten the wrong impression or annoyed that he’d assumed I was just pissing about with him.

Levi’s hand dropped into his lap. It took another second before he finally met my eyes again. 

“You were nervous because of me?” His voice was softer now. 

I sighed. “You really thought I was dating Christa?”

Levi seemed to think about that for a moment. “Yeah… I suppose that was a stupid assumption,” His eyes lit up with a bit of his usual snark. “Like you could get someone like Christa Lenz.”

I deadpanned. “I could get someone like Christa Lenz.”

“In your dreams.”

I spun around, now deciding to ignore the asshole, and started digging through my bag for my t-shirt. Just as I was pulling it out, a finger trailed down my arm. 

“Sorry…”

I didn’t look up at him. “I’d never mess you around.”

Levi’s finger continued to stroke against my bare skin. “I know. I was being an arse.”

His finger vanished, but a second later his hand was against my cheek and turning my head towards him. I didn’t pull back, just took a breath and let him pull me closer. Our lips hovered over one another for a moment, like we were hesitating or waiting for the other to pull away. Then, we both gave in a leant closer. 

Christa is a pretty woman, and she’s a good kisser, but at the end of the day I think I was so deep in Levi by this point that no one could beat his kiss. 

When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine and frowned again. “How many more kiss scenes do you have with her?”

“Four… I think.”

He grimaced. 

A tiny bit of excitement wiggled in my stomach and forced a grin onto my face. Levi noticed immediately and pulled back to shoot me a glare. 

“Sorry,” I laughed. “Just… you’re jealous.”

He blinked. Seemingly horrified by the accusation. “No I’m not.”

“Yeah, you totally are.”

He pinched my nose. “Shut up, brat.”

I don’t know if Levi made an effort to keep kissing me in the dressing room for the exact same amount of time I’d been kissing Christa on set for, but something about the smug smile on his face when I was slightly dazed at the end told me it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also guys, I wrote a little drabble form Levi's POV (it's set during Eren's memory loss, the night they first got together).   
> [What really happened!](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com/post/106557723477/scout-his-heart-ereri)
> 
> Technically, it includes spoilers for Levi's thoughts, but nothing serious, so check it out if you want ^^


	13. Suite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all the waiting and planning and postponing and waiting... Levi and Eren _finally_ get their hotel getaway!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **IMPORTANT:** If you don't know, [this site](http://www.ebooks-tree.com/) has been stealing a LOT of fanfics from AO3, mine included. If you haven't checked there for any of your own, please do! From what I gather, they're making money off our fics, and that's disgusting.

I sat on the bottom step, bag at my feet, heart in my throat, and Mikasa laughing at me from the kitchen doorway. 

“This is just like the time Armin’s grandpa took us to Disneyland,” she mused, making no effort to get ready for work like she was supposed to be doing – apparently making fun of my excitement was much higher on her agenda. 

In an effort to wipe the smile off her face, I turned a shit-eating grin her way. “No one had to pack condoms on the Disneyland trip.”

“ _You_ didn’t.”

And goodbye shit-eating smile. My face dropped in a mixture of horror and disgust as I stared across at Mikasa’s completely blank expression. We were seven when we went to Disneyland…

Mikasa sighed. “What, you and Jean can make all the sex jokes you want, but I can’t?”

“You’re my _sister_ ,” I gaped, because obviously that was all the reason she needed to not make sex jokes. 

Rolling her eyes, Mikasa jerked a hand towards the front door. “The midget just pulled in.”

I snapped my head back towards the door so fast I could swear my neck cracked. 

Scooping my bag up, I shouted a half-hearted goodbye to Mikasa and sprinted out the door, not even bothering to shut it behind me. Levi had indeed pulled up behind Mikasa’s car in the driveway, and had just started opening the door as I ran across and threw myself in on the passenger side. 

Levi blinked a few times as I leapt inside, twisting awkwardly to shove my bag through the gaps in the front seats and into the back, and yanking the door shut as I turned to grin at him. “Morning,” I said, leaning over the dashboard to plant a kiss on his lips. 

He still seemed slightly shell-shocked when I pulled back, but eventually shrugged and pulled his door closed again. “If I knew you were going to be this hyper, I would have had more coffee,” He flicked on the ignition and started pulling out. “What happened to you not being a morning person?”

“It doesn’t count if I don’t actually go to sleep,” I pointed out, switching my phone off and dropping it unceremoniously into the drink holder. Levi watched me out the corner of his eye, a hint of a smile on his lips. We started down the road, leaving the cluster of houses, and heading out of the city altogether. I messed with the radio, groaning as I discovered that Levi’s automatic station was full of news and crappy old music. Once I’d tuned into something decent (with only a slight amount of complaining on Levi’s part), I sat back, staring out the window as the surroundings changed from the quiet city outskirts to the silent country fields. 

“Where are we going?” I asked, not recognising the route other than knowing we were heading east. 

“It’s a surprise.”

“Can’t I get even a little hint?”

“You don’t get the concept of a surprise, do you?”

I frowned, slouching against the car door as I peered out and tried to make out something from the signs – none were very helpful though, seeing as we were heading in a direction I’d not really been before. After a few more minutes, Levi reached over to prod my leg. “There’re drinks in the bag behind your seat. Pass me one, will you?”

I twisted round, pulling the cool-bag into the front and dropping it between my legs to start opening it. The thing was full to the brim with drinks and food, and I was starting to wonder if Levi was driving my to another continent – there was no other explanation for having so much stuff with us. I pulled out a bottle of coke, grinning as I opened it and took a few mouthfuls.

“Oi brat, are you going to just going to hog them all yourself or what?” Levi grumbled, reaching across to poke my cheek. 

“Yeah, yeah, old man, give me a second,” I started digging through the bag for something, but none of the drinks really seemed to suit Levi’s tastes. “Did you just want a water?”

“There’s a lemonade in there with my name on it.”

I cocked an eyebrow, but after I dug deeper I sure enough found a lemonade. Literally with Levi’s name scrawled across the side. I had to suck in my lips to try to hold back a laugh, but it came out as a spluttered ‘pffft’ anyway. I could feel Levi giving me a side-eye. 

“What?”

“Sorry,” I sniggered, unscrewing the lid and handing the drink over to him. “I just didn’t picture you as a pop kind of guy… Especially not one petty enough to write his name on things.”

“Petty?” Levi muttered as he took a few sips, handing it back to me so I could screw the lid back on and place it in the drink holder. “I like lemonade, and knowing you, you’d scoff it before I got to have it. I was taking the necessary precautions.”

I smirked, but didn’t comment. It felt like Levi and I were slowly getting closer; every new thing I learnt about him surprised me, and it always felt like I was collecting pieces to the puzzle of him. Me, there wasn’t much that Levi didn’t know or couldn’t work out, but he had up such huge walls and I was finally starting to feel like I was getting over them. 

I fidgeted a little, before turning back to him. “So… is it the same hotel you cancelled last time?”

“You seriously never give up, do you?” Levi said with a click of his tongue. 

“I thought you like my persistence, Levi?”

“When you’re not being a shitty brat about it, sure.”

I sucked in my cheeks, settling back in the seat to watch him. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“If you ask me about the hotel again–”

“I’m not, I’m not!” 

He sighed and shook his head, so I took that as permission to ask away. “Why do you always call me a ‘brat’?”

The question seemed to confuse Levi for a moment, as he glanced over at me with his eyebrows knitted together, before looking back to the road. “What do you mean?”

“It’s hardly a term of endearment,” I pointed out. “And not something you’d call someone you cared about, right?”

“Do I seem like the kind of person to use pet names like ‘babe’ and ‘sugarplum’?”

I rolled my eyes. “No one would use ‘sugarplum’.” I turned my attention back to the road too, assuming I wasn’t going to get anywhere with the conversation. It wasn’t like being called a brat bothered me – hell, if I met another me, I’d probably call them a brat too – I just didn’t get whether Levi used it endearingly or not. He probably did, but I suppose I just wanted to make sure. 

It was a good few minutes later, whilst I was still trying to work out where we were headed, that Levi spoke again. 

“Does it bother you?” I glanced back at him, only to see he was still wearing a heavy set frown. In fact, he seemed concerned. “Being called a brat,” he added, apparently taking my silence as confusion. 

I sniggered to myself; so he _did_ use it in the place of pet names, there was no way he’d be so worried over my feelings towards if not. “I’m not saying it bothers me… it’s just, you don’t exactly have a bubbly personality, so it feels like you’re serious when you say it.”

Levi’s face didn’t ease. “I not calling you ‘babe’.”

“You could just call me by my name,” I pointed out, rolling my eyes. 

Levi glanced over at me again. “But everyone calls you Eren.”

“Well they’re not going to call me Shirley…?”

“Yeah, but…” Snapping his eyes back to the road, Levi cut himself off with some sort of grumbled noise, and seemed to be done with the topic. I watched him from the corner of my eye for a moment, trying to work out his thought process – so what, Levi didn’t want to call me the same thing everyone else does? I didn’t get why he felt like that, but it still somehow managed to make me feel important. 

Levi seemed to calm down a little after a moment, and eventually the drive felt settled again. We passed through a few small towns or villages, but mostly we just seemed to heading deeper and deeper into the rural countryside – farms and woodland passed by without any hint of where we were going. After another hour or so, my all-nighter was catching up with me and my eyelids were starting to drop slightly. 

“We’re here.”

I jolted upright, barely aware how long I’d dozed off for, blearily looking around at the hotel we were supposedly _finally_ at. All I saw, however, was endless green gardens, a long straight gravel road that we were driving on, and a huge mansion at the end of it. I stared at it in complete silence as Levi drove right up into the courtyard and pulled up right at the stairs, where a man in a red uniform hurried down the stairs to open my door. 

I stepped out, eyes still fixated on the giant house before me, as the uniformed guy hurried round to Levi’s side and took his keys – eventually driving off somewhere, which I assumed meant he was a valet. 

“You’re catching flies,” Levi chuckled as he moved beside me. A finger pushed my jaw up to close my mouth, and I turned to him. 

“Have you brought me to Downtown Abbey?” I asked. 

A light smack hit me over the head, but the fingers lingered in my hair. “I’m not even dignifying that with an answer,” His hand slipped down my arm, entwining our fingers together, and he gave me a little tug. “Come on, let’s get our key.”

I glanced back to the courtyard as Levi led me up the stairs towards the doors. “What about our bags?”

“That valet will send them up.”

“That makes me feel like a lazy-ass.”

“If the hat fits.”

I would have punched him in the side, but then we stepped into the reception of the house – I still couldn’t bring myself to call it a hotel, it seemed too much like something out of… well, Downtown Abbey – and my breath was taken away immediately. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face even when we wandered up to the reception desk and Levi gave his name in exchange for the key to our room. My jaw dropped once more when the woman smiled and said she’d hoped we’d enjoy our stay in the ‘Princess Historia Suite’. Judging from Levi’s knowing smirk as he wrapped his arm around my waist and guided me up the grand staircase, he knew exactly what I was thinking: _the fuck?_

“It’s been a while since I had a decent break anyway,” was the only explanation he offered. 

They used card keys for the hotel doors, which seemed oddly modern for the traditionally styled building and décor, but they were probably more secure than locks that could be picked. Levi opened the door, and stepped aside to let me go in first. I was glad he did, since I had someone behind me in case I was literally bowled over by the Suite – which I very almost was. 

Mikasa and I had always been money savers – our house was left to us in our parents’ wills, and the mortgage had already been paid off, so it didn’t cost much to keep, and we had never been ones for extravagance – so baring in mind how jaw-dropping Levi’s apartment was, the _Suite_ in the bloody _country house mansion or whatever else these places were called_ was a lot more impressive. Everything was a rich brown or cream, hints of green scattered around. The room opened out into a living room – we’re talking fireplace and everything – and though I couldn’t see into the rooms that led off from it, I was pretty sure it would be just as gorgeous. 

The door shut behind us, and Levi poked me in the back. “Are you planning on walking forward?”

“The illusion might shatter…” I muttered. 

Levi just scoffed and took my shoulders and pushed me a few steps forward, before tossing his jacket onto the sofa (oh god the sofa looked comfy) and wandering through the open double doors that led off to the right. “Drink?” he called back to me, so I guessed there was a kitchen of some sorts through there. I didn’t follow him through, since I was preoccupied with moving over to the fireplace and staring into the already dancing flames. 

“I’m paying this much for a room, and they can’t get us a better vintage?” Levi sighed as he wandered back through with a bottle and two glasses in hand. I looked over at him, as he put the glasses on a dresser and popped the champagne cork. “There’s beer if you’d prefer it.”

Wandering across the room, I tried to keep back my smile, but I was never very good at hiding my feelings. Levi glanced up after pouring the first glass, raising an eyebrow at my silent approach. The moment I was close enough, I snaked my hands up his chest and wrapped them around his neck. 

“I don’t want anything to drink,” I muttered, brushing our lips together. “I just want you.”

“Hm?” Levi leant against the dress, his arms circling my waist. “Already? I thought we should relax first.”

“Let’s briefly recall what’s happened the last two times I’ve drunk around you, shall we?” I pressed closer against him, peppering kisses along his jawline. “I want to actually remember tonight, and that means no alcohol.” 

Levi rolled his eyes. “You won’t get drunk off one glass.”

“I’m not taking any chances…” My hands cupped his cheeks, and I pulled back to stare straight into his eyes. “We’ve been waiting too long for this. I want every second engraved in my mind like a movie.”

“If we wait for the bags, we could actually make it a–”

“Don’t.”

Levi’s eyes glimmered with mischief, and his hands slid lower, over the curve of my ass. “Well, I suppose we can always have a bath after,” He tugged on my thighs slightly, and I immediately pulled myself up to wrap my legs around his waist – he held me up no problem, and stared at my lips until I leant forward and kissed him. Our lips moved together for a moment, and the second we broke apart Levi started moving across the room. “And we can head down to the spa whenever.”

“There’s a _spa_?”

“My excuse to see you in as little clothing as much as possible,” He brushed our noses together, before pausing. “Door, behind you.”

Refusing to turn away from Levi, and reached back to feel around for the door handle, eventually getting it and shoving it open. I’m sure the bedroom was just as nice as everything else, but I was a bit too busy being dropped onto the bed to admire it… the bed was nice though. _Big._

Levi didn’t crawl onto the bed with me, instead just stood leaning against one of the bedposts and smiled down at me. 

“It’s not fun if you’re over there.”

Levi held a finger to his lips. “Wait for it…” I didn’t need to ask, since a second later there was a hammering on the door. Levi shrugged, and headed back out. “That’ll be our bags,” He paused in the doorway and smirked back at me. “We won’t be disturbed again though. So just wait one more minute.”

He left to answer the door, leaving me to get rid of my clothes (purely to make things easier for him, naturally). I was about to toss everything off the side of the bed, but thought better of it; this was supposed to be a special trip, and that meant I wanted everything to be perfect, for both me and Levi… so I folded my clothes and tiptoed over to leave them on top of one of the dressers. I made it back onto the bed just as I heard Levi coming back into the room. 

The moment he stepped inside, he looked at me, eyes widening ever so slightly as he took in the sight. He dumped the bags where he stood and kicked the door shut behind him. “Time to start the getaway?” he asked wandering over, slowly undoing his belt. 

“About time too,” I grinned. 

Really, _really_ , about time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLIFFHANGER.... this is more of a two-parter, and the next chapter will be posted in a few days, since it's almost complete anyway!   
> As always, apology for the delay, I'm in the middle of my final uni year, so the workload is overwhelming. Things should start to settle now though, so we'll see!
> 
> You guys can find me on tumblr at [freckledbodty](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)!
> 
> And thanks as always to my perfect [bestie beta](http://a-norwegians-fitness-journey.tumblr.com/)!


	14. Mood vs. Mood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi becomes a master at ruining all sorts of moods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I promised it would be out within the a few days!   
> This chapter was intended to be a smutty chapter, but it basically turned into Levi and Eren being huge fucking dorks. ~~Since I can't smut~~
> 
> Note on updates: For those who don't know, I'm in my final year of uni, and in literally a month today I will have handed in my last assignment. I never know whether to promise no updates or lots during push-time, since I'm a master procrastinator, but I will promise that in a month's time _all_ my fics will finally be getting the love they deserve since I will no longer have to worry about dissertations and essays and anthology release dates so yeah. Fun times. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy the chapter! You can find me at freckledbodty
> 
> _This chapter is not beta-ed because my perfect beta Lily is also swamped with dissertation work! I'm sorry for any mistakes!!_

Levi obviously didn’t know whether to make the most of the moment, or just jump me; he crawled onto the bed with me, catching my lips and sighing against them, hand hovering uncertainly by my cheek. I chuckled, nibbling at his lower lip as I wrapped by arms around his neck, pulling him with me as I fell backwards onto the bed. As I started to run my foot up his leg, I grumbled into the kiss, making him pull back slightly.

“Pants,” I complained, kicking his leg – why couldn’t he have just stripped completely. I was desperate over here. 

“They can stay on for now,” Levi muttered, turning his attention to my neck and licking a long stripe up it slowly. 

“No…. they should come off.” I reached between us, awkwardly trying to find my way to his zipper to undo it, but he pulled his hips up and grabbed my hands before I could do anything. He didn’t say anything, just continued sucking a bright red mark onto my neck, and kept a solid grip around my wrists. I could have complained louder, but honestly Levi always worked magic with his lips, so I just tilted my head back to offer him more room and let my eyelids flicker shut. My nerves were on fire, and his teeth scraped lightly along my neck drawing a low hum out of me. Maybe it was just because of how long I’d been waiting for this, but I was already started to feel the excitement pool in my stomach. 

Levi’s mouth moved down, peppering soft kisses all across my shoulders, chest. Once he got to my stomach, his eyes flickered up to meet mine again, burning with an intensity I knew meant I was in trouble and realised why he didn’t think his own trousers were a problem just yet. 

I bit my lip, a small whine sounding in my throat as Levi lifted on of my legs and bite at my inner thigh. The cruel closeness made my cock twitch impatiently; it grew harder with every bit of attention Levi showered onto my thighs. He was all too aware of it, and thus purposefully made every effort to ignore it – stroking his hands across my lower stomach, purely to watch me tremble in hope every time. 

“Leviii!” I groaned, rubbing my eyes with my hands. I heard a breathy chuckle, but nothing else. By this point, I was nearly desperate enough to just kick Levi onto his back and ride him as I pleased… but I stored that idea away for another time. I didn’t even know what I was doing until my own hand was circling the base of my cock, and Levi’s fingers had grabbed my wrist to stop me from moving it – I shuddered, the contact there, but the friction still absent. 

“As persistent as always,” Levi said with a click of his tongue. 

“Because you’re being a git,” I whined, rocking my hips slightly just for a tiny bit of movement. It only succeeded in making Levi drag my hand up into the air. 

“Want me to suck you off or not?” My eyes snapped open and I stared down at Levi – the promise in those words nearly too much to bear. I nodded, fast and hard. “Then shut your gob and let me get on with it,” Levi grumbled, letting go of my hand and slipping his head back between my legs. He latched his lips back onto my thigh though, not the thing I _wanted_ him to suck. 

It felt like he just did that for hours: teasing and hinting that he was about to do more, but leaving me with nothing but unsatisfied (and growing) needs and a ridiculous amount of hickeys across my thighs. I eventually gave up complaining and just lay there, fisting at my hair and gasping in air to try to keep myself from going crazy. I got way too acquainted with the pattern in the white ceiling, I was staring up at it for so long – I mean, seriously, how did Levi even keep himself in his pants for that long? I was starting to wonder how shit I was at sex when I was drunk since he seemed reluctant to get on with it. 

So the moment his tongue flicked over my tip, it was like my stomach threw his fist pumped straight into my heart… or something to that effect. 

“Shit…” I panted, my body trembling.

“Sensitive?” Levi smirked, stroking his fingers up my dick painfully slowly. The tingling shot through my nerves, and I started to realise why he’d taken his sweet time. 

“You’re a dick,” I breathed, peeking down at him as his lips wrapped around my head. 

He sucked lightly, and pulled back, licking his lips and quirking an eyebrow. “We’ll see if you still say that in a moment.”

Then he really got himself in gear. Feeling his hot breath against me was pretty much enough to send me mad, but as he leant down to lick a longue line up my cock, I was gasping and arching off the bed. I didn’t want to ask whether he’d done this before – I’m sure the answer would only have left me dejected – but I did silently wonder if he’d done _this_ to me that first drunken night. I’d like to think not: there was no way I’d forgive myself if I’d forgotten this. If I thought Levi was a good kisser, he was _exceptional_ at using his mouth on other… areas… He tongue teased and stoked me, circling my head and pressing into the slit almost lazily. When he finally wrapped his lips around me and started lowering his head, my cock slowly sliding into the warmth of his mouth… just… _fuck_.

I writhed against the sheets, desperate not to buck my hips and hurt him but still needing to do _something_ as my body pulsed with pleasure. I panted, my fingers grabbing and twisting at the sheets beneath me, body trembling and twitching from the effort to stay in control. Levi seemed to want to make it difficult for me, his head bobbing quicker now, and lewd slick sound echoed up to my ears with every movement. He pushed further down almost taking me right to the hilt before grunting softly and pulling back. 

“Levi…” I groaned, hand reaching down to tug softly at his hair. “I won’t… last…” The heat in my stomach was building up more and more with every long suck, but Levi didn’t seem fazed by my complaints – if anything, he just sped up his movements. I gasped, pulling at both my own hair and his, my nerves on fire as his tongue worked its magic. 

His head bobbed faster, lips moving around my cock perfectly; my pants growing louder every second, until I was nothing but a whimpering mess. “Lev-ah…” My fingers curled in his hair. “I’m…”

My toes curled, and my hips jerked upwards as I came – choking out a cry as the pleasure shot through me. The world felt light and hot, and for a moment I just had to lay there waiting to come down from the high. I wasn’t even thinking about what Levi was doing until I blearily blinked open my eyes and peered down at him. 

He slowly pulled back off my cock, a trail of white down his chin, and a slight grimace on his face as he swallowed. As he looked up and met my eyes, I shivered. I didn’t know whether to be turned on by the smoulder, or shitting myself because I must have pushed Levi’s head down in my orgasmic haze. 

In the end I went for turned on. It was significantly more appealing than shitting myself. 

I sat up just enough to grab him by the jaw, yanking him up towards me for a ki– 

“Mmf!” 

I glared as Levi’s hand clamped over my mouth, his expression sinking into a deep-set frown. He stared back at me for a few seconds (during which I tried not to glance at the sticky stuff still on his chin), and then smacked his lips a few times. 

“I need to brush my teeth.”

The hand slipped from my mouth, and before I knew it Levi was sliding off the bed and digging around for something from his bag to dart straight into the bathroom. 

“I’m sure I’ve tasted worse!” I yelled. 

“I’m not doing it for your benefit,” he called back as he ran the water. 

I groaned – and not the good kind of groan – and slumped onto the mattress, rolling onto my side and muttering curses into the pillow. He listened to Levi brushing away, until he was _finally_ finished after god-knows-how-long, and then he padded back into the room. The bed moved as he started crawling back up to hover over me, and pressed a kiss against my shoulder. 

“The mood is totally ruined,” I grumbled, making a point to turn onto my stomach to avoid looking at him. “Who brushes their fucking teeth mid-sex?”

Levi flopped down on top of me – with no regard of how weak I was, and how much fucking weight he had packed in that short body. “I had your dick in my mouth and you’re complaining about my dental hygiene?”

“I’m complaining about your timing!” I whined, trying to shake him off my back and failing. “So much for my first time having sex with you!”

“You’ve already had sex with m-”

“I meant sober!”

Levi hummed, clearly in no way apologetic, and the next thing I knew he had pushed himself up slightly and was running his thin fingers down my back. It was painfully obvious what he was trying to do. 

“No,” I lightly kicked him. “I’m trying to be in a huff.”

“Mhm.” His hand moved further, squeezing and massaging at my ass, so I tried to wriggle until he let go. He just pinned me down. 

“Levi! I’m in a mood with you, cut it out!

“Yeah well tonight I’m a roll with ruining moods.”

I shoved my face into the pillow in hopes I could just ignore him until he got the message and apologised, but next thing I knew there was a light click and the fingers stroking my ass weren’t dry anymore. 

“Oi!” I snapped, trying to twist round, only for Levi’s free hand to hold me down harder. “Where the hell did you get lube?”

“Around the time I crushed your heart by brushing my teeth.” I could hear the shit-eating-grin as he talked. His finger pushed between my cheeks, and one started to lightly prod at me. No matter how huffy I was trying to be with him, at the end of the day I was still craving Levi, and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything but lay there as he started stretching me open. 

It felt strange, and the fact that it actually felt good made it even stranger. In moments, I was breathing heavy against the pillow, rocking my hips back onto Levi’s finger, searching for more contact. 

“You’re tight,” Levi whispered, pressing in another finger. This time I could really feel the stretch, and gritted my teeth as he pushed his fingers deeper. “We may have to wait until tonight.”

I groaned. “Why?”

“Oh? I thought you didn’t want to do it anymore?” Levi chuckled. 

“Shut up,” The hand holding my down vanished, so I could twist round to look at him. “I want to do it now.”

“We can do some things now,” he promised, pressing kisses along the small of my back. “But if we did everything, you may struggle to get downstairs for dinner.”

“Then I’ll go hungry.”

“Eren…”

“Come on,” I pressed my hips back, hissing slightly at the discomfort. “You know how long I’ve been waiting for this. I’m not waiting until tonight.”

He clicked his tongue, but began to move his fingers faster – pushing them deep and circling them get me used to it. I didn’t want to ask how long he’d done this during that first drunken night (I hoped not long, judging from how much my ass hurt in the morning). By the time he’d added a third finger, I’d lost time of how long he’d been preparing me for; Levi was pretty damn good at distracting me enough from the bizarre feeling – mainly by kissing at my hips as he tried make me raised them into the air. Sooner or later though, I was starting to get used to it, and even pushing back in time with his movements to try to get more friction. My cock was hard and flush against my stomach once more, and I peered back at Levi with needy eyes. 

He got the hint, pulling his fingers out and slowly starting to (finally) undo his trousers. I watched with my teeth sinking into my lower lip as he knelt up and shimmied out of his pants. Even after the fingers, I had to wonder if he’d really fit inside without it hurting like hell. 

I started to turn onto my back, but as I was half way there Levi’s hands clamped down on my hip to stop me. “It’ll be easier if you’re face down,” he said, still in the middle of kicking his trousers and boxers away. 

“But I want to see you,” I muttered. 

His eye twitched slightly, before he let out a heavy sigh and released my hip. I grinned as I flipped onto my back, reaching up to draw his face down so our lips could meet. I’d never get sick of kissing Levi, that was for sure; he knew exactly when to pull back to let me breathe, and when to attack with everything he had. He got me completely lost against his lips, since next thing I knew I felt him slowly starting to push inside me. 

A breath hitched in my throat, and suddenly kissing wasn’t important any more. I’d been right: Levi’s fingers weren’t anything compared to his cock. I could feel the slight sting as his throbbing heat pushed me open. Levi seemed unfazed by the tightness, and turned his attention to my neck – scattering kisses and soft sucks along the skin as I gasped and stared at the ceiling. 

“You alright?” he whispered. 

“Just shove it in,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. 

“As romantic as that sounds, that would hurt like shit, idiot.”

“Just do it. Like ripping off a plaster.”

“Shoving yourself balls deep in someone should not be compared to taking a plaster off.”

I groaned. “How long will it feel weird for then?”

Levi huffed a small laugh against my neck, and then pulled back. He hooked his hands under my knees, and made me pull them up and further apart. The shift made me whimper, and Levi slipped a little deeper. 

“Better?” he asked, still moving excruciatingly slow. 

“A bit.”

“Well what about this?” His hand wrapped around my dick and he began to tease the slit with his thumb. A shiver rocked through my body. I nodded, unable to find words to properly form whilst dealing with the strange mix of pain and pleasure. 

My body was burning, that much I knew; burning with the need for more, and the need for less. A contradiction that was sending me crazy as I tried to work out which need was greater. Before I knew it, Levi was leaning down and catching my lips again. I kissed him lazily, letting him do all the work as I just moaned against him. 

“I’m in, you know,” Levi muttered as he tugged on my lower lip. I blinked, surprised at the revelation, but sure enough Levi’s hips were flush against me. I could feel my whole body tingling, ready to start moving against him. The ache was slowly fading away, and by god was I glad about that. “Should I wait a bit longer?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s fine,” I cupped his face with my hands, kissing him softly, and successfully missing his lips by quite a bit. “I want you, so hurry up.”

He chuckled, and with one last lingering kiss, he stroked a hand against my hip and moved. 

I tipped my head back as the pleasure shot up my nerves; sure there was still a little bit of discomfort, but that was nothing compared to how amazing it felt to have Levi sliding in and out of me. He went slow, probably out of consideration of me, but made sure to push in deep with every steady thrust. My fingers gripped at the sheets, and I felt him brushing a hand over my forehead, whispering sweet nothings – no, not sweet nothings, sweet _everythings._

“More,” I breathed, arching my back to push down against him. “Give me more.”

He didn’t waste a second in doing what I’d asked; his hips bucking forward harder and drawing a small cry out of me. With every thrust whimpers and whines were toppling out of my mouth, and Levi pressed his lips against mine to drink every sound up. He kissed hard – obviously getting lost in it himself, seeing as every moment he was plunging deeper into me. 

“Eren…” he sighed, his hand once again stroking my cock – this time in time with the heavy thrusts. I grabbed at his hair, tugging on it harshly as I drowned in him. 

I gasped, my body shaking as I could feel myself nearing the edge. “Harder…” I moaned. With a soft grunt, Levi pounded even harder into me. A spark shot up my spine – a burning hot speck of pleasure that somehow managed to make me cry out sharply. “Again. That again.” Again, he did as I begged, and I was rewarded with another of those amazing sparks shooting through me. And like that, I was coming again. I gasped his name, gripping him tight as my hips jerked and I spilled over his hand. It was another of those white fuzzy moments where I didn’t really know what was happening. 

I did know that the moment I was coming down from the high, Levi’s hands were yanking my hips up and he was pounding into me harder than ever before. I was moaning, my body trembling from the oversensitivity, and Levi was just whispering my name over and over. Not ‘brat’. My name. And fuck if that didn’t send me crazy. 

And then he was pulling out, quick and with his eyes clenched shut in concentration, and giving himself a few more hurried strokes, he let out a grunt and came across my stomach. 

Levi panted, running a hand through his hair, and blinked a few times before zoning into me. After a moment of staring down at me, he sighed. “Fuck.” Very sophisticated. 

“Thanks,” I said, still trying to catch my breath and letting my head fall back on the mattress. “Was that as good as the first time?”

“Well…” he laughed, slowly reaching to the box of tissues that the hotel had placed oh-so-thoughtfully on the bedside table. “It was a lot less sloppy and messy, so I’d say it was an improvement.”

“So am I better fuck drunk or sober?”

“Sober. You’re cleaner when you’re sober.” He chuckled at my concerned grimace and kissed me again as he cleaned us both up. “But, I’d never say no to drunken Eren either.”

I hummed and closed my eyes as he pulled away to go dump the tissues in the bin. “Maybe I should never get drunk again. I definitely prefer remembering it all.”

Levi crawled back onto the bed, and lay down beside me, hooking an arm around my waist and pulling my back against his chest. His breath was warm against my shoulder, and I could feel myself relaxing against him. It was weird how comfortable he made me feel; even looking back on that morning I woke up beside him, I was pretty at ease around him (you know, after I got over the initial horrendous ‘shit I slept with my agent’ shock).

“You hadn’t planned anything for today, did you?” I asked quietly, feeling myself already being lured into the bed’s comfort. 

“Nothing’s planned,” Levi said. “We can just go with the flow. Though the dining room opens at six.”

“Plenty of time to nap then,” I grinned. My eyes flickered shut, and I quietly worshipped whoever had picked these god-damn clouds for pillows. Feeling one last kiss against the back of my neck, I started to doze off; Levi’s warmth wrapped tight around me.


	15. Bananas and Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi and Eren make the most out of what the hotel has to offer... but pass on dessert for their own version.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha ha ha ha hi...
> 
> SO, I got a job and moved to Japan, hence why no update in forever. ~~also the fact that my name in Japan is 'Eren' this fic has become 100000 times harder to right~~
> 
> I made a pledge to finish my fics and work on them one by one, so now it's this fic's turn! The remaining 5 chapters are all plotted out in great detail, so it's just a matter of writing them out, which shouldn't be too difficult now it's plotted. 
> 
> I'm going to Tokyo for Christmas, so my best guess would be that the next chapter will be up sometime after then but before New Year. 
> 
> I'm super sorry for the wait, I hope you guys can forgive me and maybe enjoy the rest of this silly fic that is becoming sillier by the second because what is writing??  
> Sorry again, and thanks for you patience! 
> 
> Y'all can find my worthless ass on tumblr at [freckledbodty](http://freckledbodty.tumblr.com)
> 
> _((As a side note, this chapter got really fucking long so I ended up cutting out a pool scene where Levi manages to name-drop Eren to get the pool to themselves and basically it consists of just more eye fucking and sexual comments so yeah))_

I slept better than I expected, a lot better. I woke u slowly, curling up against the warm body beside me, moving my head to rest on him, turning just enough to peck at the soft skin. 

“If you want to suck me off can you at least wake up first?”

As soon as I realised the voice was coming from somewhere above me, I opened my eyes, only to realise I was nuzzling into Levi’s thigh, and his flaccid member was about an inch from my face. I frowned and rolled onto my back, rubbing my eyes. Levi was sitting up reading, instead of snuggling with me, and I wasn’t okay with that. 

“One day I’ll wake up next to you in a good way,” I rumbled as Levi’s hand reached down to lightly start playing with my hair, fingers carding through what I’m sure was impressive sex hair. 

“Are you implying my dick isn’t a nice thing to wake up to?” Levi asked, eyes still focused on the book. There was the slightest smile on his lips. 

“Now when I expect to wake up to your face,” I said, rolling back onto my front and propping myself up on my elbows. “Your dick is nice and all, but it’s no comparison for your face.”

“So romantic.”

“I know, right? Screw acting, I should be a poet.”

Levi finally glanced down at me, smiling and putting his book on the side table before patting his lap. I crawled onto it, grinning as I straddled him and hooked my arms around his neck. 

“Can I have a kiss, or are you going to ruin the mood and make me brush my teeth first?”

With a roll of his eyes, Levi shook his head. “I’ll deal with your morning breath for now, I guess…”

Lazily, our lips found each other, moving together slowly and as naturally as humanly possible. I could taste a coffee on Levi’s tongue, which meant he’d been awake for a while before me. His hands rested easily on my waist, managing to keep me warm even as the sheets were slipping from around me. As we broke apart, Levi rested his forehead against mine, breathing deeply. 

“The restaurant opened half an hour ago for dinner, if you’re hungry.”

“I slept that long?” I asked, sure that I couldn’t have slept for 10 hours – although, I hadn’t exactly slept last night out of excitement. 

“You looked tired, so I didn’t want to wake you.”

Giving him a grateful smile, I quickly pecked Lev’s lips and hopped out of bed. My hips ached somewhat, but it was nothing compared to the morning after our first drunken encounter. Levi made no effort to hide the way he stared at my body as I moved around to search through my bag to find something to wear, and I made every effort to bend over and give him a decent view – I heard a small click of his tongue as he noted what I was doing. When I eventually found something decent (the suit pants that I’d been told made my ass look amazing and a blue checked shirt that rode up to show a glimpse of my hips when I stretched), I held them up to Levi questioningly, checking they were suitable. After a nod, I hurried off to the bathroom for a quick shower, well aware I was still coated in the remnants of sex. 

Unsurprisingly, Lei eventually joined me in the bathroom, but only to get ready himself. We moved around each other with ease, as if we could both sense each other’s movements and move as needed. The only real disturbance as the odd ass pinch or playful comment. There was no shyness or embarrassment about getting changed around each other either, it was like we’d been together forever. 

Before I knew it, we were both washed and dressed – Levi in his usual black suit and white shirt, though I did talk him into losing the tie and leaving the top few shirt buttons undone for my viewing pleasure – and we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant. 

The more I saw of this place, the more sure I was that Levi had just brought me to the set of Downtown Abbey, or at least some other stupidly fancy country house. We were led into a huge room filled with tables and candles and chandeliers that were big enough to make me reluctant to walk directly under them. The other guests eating were all dressed up to the nines as well, making me more than a little revealed I’d at least brought suit pants. Levi talked to one of the waiters in a penguin suit who then led us to a table in the corner. 

By the time I’d snapped out of the awestruck state, Levi was pouring wine into my glass with a smirk. 

“I wish it was this easy to impress everyone,” he said. 

“What happened to winning an Oscar before getting another fancy meal?” I smirked as I sipped the drink. 

Levi copied the action, watching me with intense eyes over the brim of his glass. “Circumstances changed.”

I cocked my eyebrow, tilting my head to the side. “Oh? What changed exactly?”

Levi leant back in his chair as he watched me carefully. I could almost feel him trying to read my thoughts. “You just turned out to be an even better fuck than I expected.” Ignoring my pout, Levi called over a waiter. 

“I haven’t even looked at a menu yet,” I complained, realising that there wasn’t even a menu on the table.

“No need. You’re getting steak.”

“And why’s that? Maybe I don’t want steak.”

“Because this place only as three options a night: meat, fish, and vegetarian. You would have known that if you’d listened to the waiter when we were seated, and not just stared around like a goldfish.”

The waiter appeared by the table, but Levi’s gaze didn’t move from me. He was wearing one of his shit-eating grins that said ‘I now I picked right’, and whilst I would have picked the meat option, no matter if it was steak or not, I didn’t want him to have bragging rights. 

“Maybe I wanted the vegetarian option,” I shrugged.

“You have called salad ‘rabbit food’ more times than I can count, and complained every time you’ve been left with the veggie option on set.”

“Then I want fish.”

“You can have fish, but in that case you and you’re fish breath are staying at least ten feet away from me for the rest of the night.”

Even the waiter was trying to hold abck a laugh as my face dropped in defeat. 

“Two steaks, please,” Levi said, his voice dripping with pride, his eyes still locked with mine, and the gaze growing more intense the longer we remained like that. It was making my skin tingle. “Well done for me. If I see a spot of blood on my plate, you can wipe it away with your tip.”

The waiter nodded and turned to me. “Rare please. I’m not such a wuss,” Lvi’s eyes sparkled with challenge, so I continued. “Try to find me a big piece? I like it thick and juicy…”

If the waiter sensed the connotation in my voice, he didn’t comment. He also didn’t comment on the ridiculous eye fucking that was now going on, but he did leave the table very quickly. 

We stayed that way for some time after, Levi’s gaze making my heart race. I like to think I was having the same effect on him, but I couldn’t be sure. Somehow, it was him how looked away first, so maybe he was feeling just as flustered as I was. I was starting to wish we’d just ordered room service…

“What do you want to do after? The hotel facilities are open late, but we can drive to the town if you wanted to do something different,” Levi asked, pulling out his phone and presumably checking nearby things to do. Honestly though, I was less interested in the hotel and more interested in just spending as much time with Levi as humanly possible. 

“Can’t we just… go back upstairs?” I asked quietly, my foot reaching out under the table to hook around his ankle. I glanced at him through my lashes; I didn’t know I seductive was a thing I did well, but it was worth a try. “I’d rather we just… go have dessert in private.”

Judging from the long, slow, deep breath in Levi took, I’d gotten my meaning across. It looked like he was controlling his words very carefully when he spoke. “We can do that…”

Now I’d made the innuendo, I was at a loss for what to do next – especially with Levi looking at me with such a predatory gaze, and his foot slowly moving up my leg. By the time his foot was at my thigh, I had to drop my gaze, giving a shaky sigh as I pushed filthy thoughts to the back of my mind – this wasn’t the time or place. Levi removed his foot, his smug smile back in place. We were silent for a moment before Levi broke the hungry tension in the air. 

“I take it you want bananas and cream for dessert then?”

I’m ashamed to say it took me a moment, but once it hit, the conversation steamrolled into giggles and terrible food innuendos for the rest of the wait for our food to come. Even then, it didn’t really stop, just grew filthier and somehow more serious as we each made every effort to eat out meals as seductively as possible to see who would crack first. (I did, but only because this time Levi’s foot made it all the way to my crotch). 

Seeing as there was no blood on Levi’s plate and the poor waiter had had to listen to a number of terrible flirts from the two of us, Levi dumped the money for the meal and a generous tip, before grabbing my hand and practically dragging me out of the restaurant. 

Before the lift doors had slid shut behind us, I was slammed against the wall and Levi’s lips were crushing against mine. He seemed even more desperate now then last night, and I hoped that was because he knew what was coming was damn good. There was no seduction or teasing in this kiss – we’d had out fill of that at dinner – this was pure, rare desire that left me breathless in seconds. 

I whined helplessly against Levi’s lips as his hands slid round my ass and hoisted me clear off the floor, his body pressing hard against mine as my les wrapped around him. 

We didn’t even notice the lift coming to a stop, but we both heard the small squeak of surprise as the doors opened and one of the hotel maids saw us. I was immediately dropped, and Levi’s hand was pressing my face into his chest as he muttered a small apology which the maid quickly returned. The doors shut once more, and my head was released, though it seemed the maid had thought better than to get on with us. 

“What was with smothering me?” I asked as Levi ran an exasperated hand through his hair. 

He shot me a frown. “Who’s the actor whose face is currently plastered everywhere? We don’t need a scandal.”

He had a point – I hadn’t thought of that, since the whole ‘famous’ thing still didn’t feel real to me yet. I frowned at the floor, wondering if from here on out I’d have to be overly careful with what I did with Levi… though apparently he saw me thinking too much and a hand brushed against my cheek. 

“Don’t worry. It won’t be as much as a pain as you think,” Levi assured me quietly, leaning forward to peck my lips softly before the lift came to a stop on our floor. Without another word, he took my hand and started leading me out back towards our room, pushing me inside and locking the door behind us. In a heartbeat, we were pressed together again, hands tangling in hair, legs tripping over each other as we tried to get to the bedroom, lips panting and moving messily together. Before I knew it though, Levi stopped, pushing me away slightly. 

“What?” I asked, out of breath as he seemed to stare off into the distance over my shoulder. 

“I know you wanted dessert… but I have a better idea,” There was something in his voice that made me shiver in excitement. “Go strip and lie on the bed. I’ll be one minute.”

“But–”

Levi cut me off with a heated kiss, then pushed me away again. “I promise you, this is better.”

In general at this point, the concept of stripping without Levi wasn’t something I was on board with, but there was still no way I was going to argue with him about it, so instead I just did what he said. 

By the time I was sitting naked and impatient on the bed, I was counting down the minute Levi had promised me. As he walked back in, he frowned and turned his finger. “Lie on your front, or I won’t take another step into this room.”

“Levi!” I groaned, doing as instructed with a pointed huff. “This is taking way too long…” 

“Why are you always in such a hurry to get fucked? Enjoy the build up, brat,” Levi sighed. I could hear him tugging his clothes off, but didn’t look back at him, instead staring ahead at the wall. 

“I’m in a hurry to feel good, nothing wrong with that.”

The mattress dipped as Levi joined me on it, straddling over my hips. “Well, I promise this will feel very good,” he said in a murmur. 

I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I heard something that I assumed was lubricant being squeezed onto his hands, but that idea quickly vanished when a light scent of something flowery filled the room. Levi’s hands pressed against my back – slightly cool and moist with something. I couldn’t even ask what it was before he was moving his hands against my back and shoulders, massaging them so perfectly a moan slipped out of my mouth immediately. 

“Told you it was good…” Levi said from above me. 

His hands moved in ways they never had on my skin before – and though it’s perhaps cheesy or over the top to say a massage changed your life, that massage was changing my god damn life. 

“Where did you learn to do this?” I breathed, eyes shut at this point as the knots were slowly eased out of my back. 

“I took a few sports therapy classes when I was in college,” Levi shuffled down my legs, hands moving to the small of my back, working the muscles there. “Needed a few extra credits. Never thought it’d be useful…” 

“It’s useful…It’s really fucking useful…” I moaned, body shifting an arching appreciatively under his touch. 

He got off my legs, kneeling beside me and adding more of the (what I know assumed to be) massage oil to his hands, then paused for a moment. He hummed, and then I felt a load of the oily stuff sliding down the small of my back, his fingers dragging it over my ass cheeks and lightly spreading them. My heart was in my throat, toes curled as I sensed where this was going. 

“I have to say…” Levi stared quietly, shifting and grabbing my hips to coax me onto my knees, ass in the air for him as he knelt between my legs. His fingers returned to their previous action of dragging the dripping oil towards my hole. “I like it when you’re dripping in something like you are now…”

As the first finger pushed its way inside me, I gave a soft whimper – I was still a little tender from earlier, and not only that, I was still a little stretched. He seemed to be well aware of that, and straight away started fingering me slowly, the oil hot on his hands now. 

“I… prefer it when I’m… dripping in something of yours…” I whispered over my shoulder, well aware my cock was already hardening. 

“Well that can be arranged…” 

I groaned again, hands fisting into the pillow as Levi started to press another finger inside of me. I was pretty sure I couldn’t handle another long preparation again, so I took matters into my own hands and started rocking my hips back onto his fingers. 

“Greedy already, Eren?”

“Fuck yes…”

“I was planning to be slow and sensual for you tonight.”

I moaned, conflicted over whether that sounded amazing, or whether I just wanted him to fuck me into the mattress as soon as possible. 

He chuckled, clearly sensing my inner battle, and started scissoring his fingers inside me, drawing gasps and whimpers with every one. 

“That good, Eren?”

I whined, peering over my shoulder at him. “More… please…” 

With a smirk and a nod, Levi added a third finger, this time fucking me on them properly at a speed that was a little more pleasing. It was strange, but it still didn’t feel like enough… like I was still empty. 

“Levi!” I groaned in complaint, and he understood immediately. Pulling his fingers out, he grabbed my hips and thrust deep inside me – his cock harder and hotter than I’d expected it to be by now – forcing a high cry from my throat as my whole body jerked. There was nothing better that how thick Levi’s cock was, nothing better than the way his hands gripped my hips as he thrust into me. He kept pushing my head back down into the pillow whenever I tried to push up, but that only made the moment more thrilling as he muttered praises and compliments down to me. 

The heat of it all was unbearable, and with every harsh thrust of Levi’s hips I could feel the pleasure shooting through my nerves. His hands gripped my skin tight, reminding me of the bruise on my hip I found after that first night; it was a little painful, but it a good way, it grounded me there, kept me in reality with the heightening pleasure when it could have been so easy to just drift off and drown in it. 

“A-Ah… Levi, I-I’m… too soon…!” 

Levi’s heavy grunts above me didn’t stop, and his hips didn’t slow, his cock pulsing inside me, almost as if he were already nearing the end too. He reached out, hand wrapping around my cock, pre-cum leaking onto the sheets, and jerked it thoughtlessly. It was just one brief touch, and I was yelping into the pillow, come spurting over the sheets beneath me, body taunt with the aching pleasure that filled me. Levi didn’t stop either, just kept going, leaving me a sobbing mess from the overstimulation as he kept pounding against my prostate. 

“E-Eren…” 

I whimpered in response to my name, and a second later the grip on my hips was tightening, Levi burying himself inside. It was the oddest sensation, not one I’d felt before, the hot bursting inside me, leaving me crying out yet again. It took a moment before I realised what it was – Levi coming inside. 

Things slowed down then, Levi catching his breath before pulling out and stroking his hands over my back until I relaxed and lay down on the bed again. A pair of lips brushed through my hair, reaching my ear. “Sorry… I couldn’t help it…” 

I shifted my hips a little, flinching as I felt a bit of the heat starting to leak out of me. “It’s okay…” I whispered, turning onto my back, reaching up to draw him down into a soft kiss. “I’m dripping with you… remember?”

Levi groaned, kissing me harder. We stayed like that for a while, just kissing or hugging (or, in my case, grimacing as Levi’s desire kept dripping out of me whenever I moved), and eventually we’d calmed down enough to look at each other knowingly. 

“So…” Levi started, brushing a hand through my hair. “We still have the rest of the night to ourselves. How about we wash each other off, and then we can get back to that bananas and cream you were so desperate for?”

“Hell fucking yes.”


End file.
